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NORWEGIAN AMERICAN 
LUTHERANISM 


UP TO 1872 


ene Oe 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK « BOSTON + CHICAGO + DALLAS 
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CoO., LimitTED 
LONDON - BOMBAY + CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lt. 
TORONTO 


NORWEGIAN AMERICAN 
LUTHERANISM (“..” 


PEC 5 - 1926 
UPR MLO S72 Leo, 0 sion sew 






BY | 
J. MAGNUS’ROHNE, Tu.D. 


(Harvard) 


PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIANITY IN LUTHER COLLEGE 
DECORAH, IOWA 


jew Bork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1926 


All rights reserved 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and printed. 
Published October, 1926. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
J- J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


To MY WIFE 
LOUISE REBECCA ROHNE 


TO WHOSE PATIENT LABORS, CONSTANT 
ENCOURAGEMENT, AND DEVOTED FOR- 
BEARANCE THIS WORK, UNDER 
GOD, IS DUE 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/norwegianamericaOOrohn 


PREFACE 


The Norse-American Centennial celebration of 1925, at which 
the President of the United States was the guest of honor, focused 
the attention of the American people on a group of citizens that had 
hitherto neither demanded nor received much attention. The signal 
honor paid them by the President aroused a widespread interest in 
the Norwegians and everything connected with them. The Norwe- 
gians, in turn, have made an earnest effort to answer most of the 
questions that have been asked in this connection, and the present 
volume is an attempt to furnish detailed information in regard to 
the early church life of this group. Many factors have worked to- 
gether to make the Norwegians desirable and useful citizens, but 
none of them has exerted a tithe of the formative influence exercised 
by their church. Its influence has been felt at every turn; it has 
furnished undisputed and wise leadership; it has built influential 
institutions; and it has initiated and carried through large and im- 
portant movements. In America, as in Norway, it is true, as Bjorn- 
son said, that the church stands high in the minds of the Norwegian 
people. Nowhere else is the quiet, subdued strength of the Nor- 
wegian better reflected than in the powerful institutions of the 
church; nowhere, also, is his fierce and uncontrollable independence 
shown more strikingly than in his church controversies. Between 
these extremes lie many fine and homely virtues that make him ex- 
tremely interesting and extremely human. Indeed, it is absolutely 
impossible for one who persists in ignoring Norwegian American 
Lutheranism to understand the Norwegian American group. 

Somewhat typical of the friendly interest shown the Norwegian 
American group is the ready response with which the honorable 
Faculty of Harvard Divinity School met the author’s suggestion that 
he write his dissertation for the Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) degree 
on a Norwegian American topic. Since his studies were in the field 
of Church History and the History of Dogma, he could have found 
no more interesting and profitable subject than “Norwegian Ameri- 
can Lutheranism up to 1872.” Throughout the preparation of the 
dissertation, the author kept in mind the possibility of having it pub- 
lished, and he has since received very cordial support for this idea, 
not only from the honorable Faculty, but from several eminent Nor- 
wegian American leaders to whom it has been submitted. After 
most painstaking revision, in which task the author has had the most 
expert help available, the book is now ready, and it is submitted 

vii 


vill PREFACE 


with a great deal of apprehension as to just what reception will be 
accorded it. 

It might prove a distinct revelation to the student of American 
church history to hear that out on the middle-western plains there 
has sprung up a theology which is as vigorous and as daring in the 
subjects with which it grapples as New England theology itself. Un- 
fortunately, the limits of the present work—1872—preclude a full 
demonstration of this fact; but there is enough here to impress the 
average student of American church history. More startling still 
is the institutional development among the Norwegians who are not, 
after all, one of the larger racial groups in America. Yet in 1925 
this group had the largest Lutheran college for men in the United 
States, and also the largest Lutheran college for men and women in 
the United States. 

Now a word to Norwegian American Lutherans. They should, 
of course, welcome this history. This is frankly a critical work at- 
tempted in the accepted scientific manner; hence what it lacks in ex- 
uberant praise, it should gain in even tenor and sincere restraint. 
The author has made it a point to be as conservative in his presenta- 
tion as the historical facts will permit, although in the interest of 
historical veracity he has had to present also a number of unpleasant 
facts. This is the history of Norwegian American Lutheranism as 
accurately told as the author could garner it from a diligent examina- 
tion of the sources. He has attempted to present the history fairly 
as it is, not as he would have liked to have it. Any alert reader 
should be able to detect this note of realism and make allowance 
for it. 

Those I am indebted to are so numerous that I hesitate to begin 
to mention some of them for fear of overlooking others. First of 
all I wish to thank all my teachers at Luther College, at Luther Theo- 
logical Seminary, at Hartford Theological Seminary, and at Harvard 
Divinity School for all their patient and valuable instruction, some 
of which I have tried to apply in this book. I also wish to thank the 
Board of Education of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America 
for a Theological Fellowship of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in 
America; the Hartford Seminary Foundation for a Special Fellow- 
ship; and the President and Fellows of Harvard University, and 
especially the Society for Promoting Theological Education, for a 
Williams’ Scholarship and a Williams’ Fellowship. 

Other authors deserve acknowledgment. This has been done 
quite fully in the footnotes. If any should be mentioned by name 
here, they must be Rev. J. A. Bergh, Prof. R. B. Anderson, Rev. H. 
Halvorsen, Dr. Knut Gjerset, Dr. O. M. Norlie, Dr. Theo. C. Ble- 
gen, and Dr. K. C. Babcock. Individuals who have assisted in the 
revision of the manuscript are also hereby gratefully remembered. 
Some of these are: Dr. Knut Gjerset, Prof. Karl T. Jacobsen, 
Prof. Carlo A. Sperati, Prof. David T. Nelson, all of Luther Col- 
lege, Decorah, Iowa; Dr. O, E. Brandt of Luther Theological Sem- 


PREFACE 1X 


inary, St. Paul, Minnesota; Dr. C. A. Mellby of St. Olaf College, 
Northfield, Minnesota; and Rev. H. J. Glenn, pastor at Sioux Falls, 
South Dakota. Those who have shown friendly interest and given 
much needed moral support are too numerous to mention, though I 
feel that I need especially to mention in this connection the Faculty 
of Harvard Divinity School, especially Dr. G. F. Moore and Dr. E. 
C. Moore; Prof. O. E. Rolvaag of St. Olaf College; Kr. Prestgaard, 
editor of Decorah Posten; and the faculty and students of Luther 
College. 


Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. 
June 5, 1926. 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


TOE RUELIMINAB YS OURVE VEL TURAL et ket Se su REG OMe Cat A daa ty I 
A. Geographic factors—Norway’s rugged nature 
1. Isolates people into small groups 
2. Makes for strength of body and character 


B. Political and social factors 

1. Blockade isolated Norway from Denmark 
Greater autonomy in Norway 
Rise of nationalism and desire for liberty 
Constitution of Eidsvold, May 17, 1814 
Sweden promised to respect constitution at union 
Liberties of masses imperiled by upper classes 


C. Religious factors 
1. Conditions before time of Hauge 
a. Orthodoxy 
1. Respect for forms 
2. Churchliness 
b. Pietism 
1. Distributed tracts 
2. Introduced confirmation 
3. Promoted education 
c. Rationalism—put all emphasis on education 
1. Bishops not rationalistic by Hauge’s time 
2. Clergy not generally affected 
3. Laymen practically unaffected 
2. Hauge 
a. His work 
b. Opposition to him—persecution 
c. His arrest, trial, imprisonment, and release 
D. Combination of political and social factors with religious 
1. Class war led by Haugean Ueland 
2. Their victory in 1836 
E. Healing of cleavage between lay and academic Christianity 
1. Grundtvigian revival 
2. Anti-Grundtvigian awakening under G. Johnson and 
P. Caspari 
F. Split on American soil 
1. No power to hold them together 
2. Immigrants slowly forget animosities engendered in 
Norway 


Anh wh 


xi 


xi CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
G. Emigration 
I. Its causes 
2. Its volume 
Il; “IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED) LAY ACTIVITY’  . 0 wae eee 


A. Early explorations and church work 
1. Norsemen discovered Iceland (860) and American 
Mainland (986-1000) 
2. Missionary work begun 
3. American colonies and missions abandoned after black 
death 


B. Norwegian participation in 17th century exploration and 
colonization 
1. Jens Munk’s expedition to Hudson Bay 1619—Rev. 
Rasmus Jensen 
2. Norwegians at New Amsterdam—Laurence Noorman 


C. Emigration in I9th century 
I. Quakerism introduced in Norway following war with 
England 
a. Stephen Grellet preaches for the Norwegians 
b. Lars Larsen returns to Stavanger to found sect 
c. Conditions at Stavanger 
1. Herrnhut remnants 
2. Haugeanism 
3. Bureaucratic official classes 
d. Yet Quakerism made only slow headway 
1. No persecution before 1825 by government 
2. Possibly persecuted by public opinion 
3. Poverty, not persecution, caused Grellet to 
advise emigration 
e. Cleng Peerson, pioneer promoter of emigration, 
sent to investigate 
2. Sloop Party emigrates in 1825 
a. Set out July 4, 1825, and sailed via Madeira 
Island to New York 
b. Settled at Kendall, New York 
3. The religious history of the Sloopers 
a. Many agnostics, etc. 
b. Many Mormons, etc. 
c. No great direct, but great indirect, contribution 
to Norwegian Lutheranism 


D. The Fox River Settlement 
I. Its importance 
a. As a distributing center 
b. As bringing on changed ideas of America 
c. As being a second Stavanger 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
2. Religious attitude of the dissenting Fox River settlers 


a. Agnostics 
b. Unstable Haugeans 
c. Sectarians 
d. Weakness of Haugeanism 
1. Against “pure doctrine” 
2. For spiritual life 
3. Indiscriminately joined sects 
3. Religious attitude of the Lutheran Fox River settlers 
a. Ole Olson (Hetletvedt) 
b. Bjorn Hatlestad—Mehus—Aaragerbo—Skaar, etc. 


E. Elling Eielsen comes to Fox River 
1. Biographical data and religious work in Norway: 
2. His attitude toward the clergy and the other Haugeans 
in Norway 
3. He routs the sects at Fox River 


III. A New Tyre or IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS . 
A. Ole Rynning’s party dissuaded from going to Fox River 
1. Settled at Beaver Creek where nearly all perished 
a. Ole Rynning wrote True Account on sickbed 
(1837-38) 
b. Ole Nattestad’s Description of a Journey to 
North America (1837-38) 
2. New impetus to emigration 
a. Ansten Nattestad and the “America fever” 
b. Counter propaganda by Norwegian writers, 
preachers, etc. 
3. New immigration after 1842 
a. Many settlements 
b. People prepared for emigration by pastors in 
Norway 


B. The Muskego settlement 
1. Attempt at settlement by Telemarkians a failure 
2. The settlement at Wind Lake a success 
a. The “dugout” in the Indian Mound 
b. Heg’s “hotel” 
3. Religious work under Heg’s leadership 


C. Difference between Muskego and Fox River 

1. Cleavage already present before pastors came 

2. Religious antecedents of Fox River settlers 
a. Stavanger center of social-religious-political revolt 
b. Strong Quakerish views at Stavanger 

3. Religious antecedents of Muskego settlers 
a. Had felt impulses of “revolt” in Voss, Nu- 

medal, and Telemarken 


xiii 


PAGE 


42 


Xiv CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
b. Pastors nevertheless had retained hold on people 
c. Politics took sharp turn in 1836—emigrants 
henceforth had better “last impression” 
D. Inadequacy of lay system 
1. No superposed clergy in America 
2. Immigrated as children of State Church, not alive to 
spiritual needs 
a. Satiate and peevish at departure from Norway 
b. Spiritual hunger arose as result of hardships 
3. Norwegians place church on high plane 
E, Claus Lauritz Clausen’s arrival at Muskego and his or- 
dination in 1843 
1. Received impulse to come to America through mis- 
sion society 
2. Ordained on a call from Muskego, October 18, 1843 
3. Rev. and Mrs. C. L. Clausen’s work at Muskego 
4. The “congregation” at Muskego 
F, Elling Eielsen ordained in 1843 
1. Eielsen’s opposition to the clergy in August, 1843 
2. His ordination on October 3, 1843 


LV, DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG# 9s toes es en one oe ee 


A. Dietrichson ordained for America 
1. State Church not responsible 
2. Biography and characterization 
3. Sent by P. Sorensen to America 
a. Ordained February 26, 1844 
b. Came to America July 9, 1844 
4. Chose Koshkonong as headquarters 
5. Examines ordination of other two pastors 
a. Finds Clausen’s ordination valid 
b. Controversy with Eielsen over Eielsen’s ordina- 
tion 
B. Dietrichson begins organizational work 
1. His four requirements for congregational organization 
2. Discussion and estimation of these four requirements 
3. Organization of congregations 
a. East Koshkonong 
b. West Koshkonong 
c. Other settlements 
1. Luther Valley organized 
2. Luther Valley called Clausen in 1845 
3. Rock River reclaimed from Episcopalians 
C. Dietrichson called to Koshkonong 
1. Committee deadlocked on call—Dietrichson steps in 
2. Dietrichson called March 3, 1845—call signed by 227 
men 


PAGE 


64 


CONTENTS XV 


CHAPTER PAGE 
3. Accepts provisionally—leaves for Norway in May, 
1845 
D. Eielsen’s activity, 1843-45 
1. Went through settlements in Northwest 
2. Penetrated to Texas 
3. Paul Anderson and Ole Andrewsen 
E. Dietrichson returns to America after a vain appeal to the 
Mother Church for aid 
1. Norwegian American Church left to own resources 
2. Dietrichson, therefore, took hold of organization with 
renewed vigor 
a. Spring Prairie constitution as example of consti- 
tutional development 
b. Criticism and evaluation of the Spring Prairie 
constitution 
3. Dietrichson leaves America never to return, 1850 
F. Miscellaneous 
I. Some “old settlers” and others were beginning to see 
results of labors 
2. Houses of worship—four in detail 
3. Dietrichson’s “church order” 
4. The “forsanger” or “klokker” 
a. His public functions at the service 
b. His responsibility in leading the hymn singing 
c. His instruction of the young 
5. Church discipline 
6. Order of public worship 
7, Congregational finances 
V. OvtTLooK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES His Forces. . BS eee 


A. Two main church parties, Dietrichson’s and Palen 
1. Agreed on ultimate and proximate aims of the Church 
2. No great divergence in discipline 
3. Religious factor the determining 
a. Hardships in America as great as in Norway 
b. Same rugged Gospel needed in America as in 
Norway 
1. Hauge had struck vibrant tone 
2. Emphasis on Law and Gospel 
3. Forbearance and forgiveness 


B. Who should make capital of the religious situation? 
1. Ejielsen crude compared to Hauge 
a. Very imperfectly reflected Hauge’s spirit 
b. While he conjured with Hauge’s name, he did 
not have Hauge’s warm Gospel tone 
2. Dietrichson too aristocratic and autocratic 
a. Open-minded on organizational problem 


Xvi CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
b. Grundtvigian 
c. Could not bridge gulf between lay and academic 
Christianity 
C. Rev. H. A. Stub’s arrival in 1848 
1. Early prejudices regarding America 
2. Came to America, however, immediately after or- 
dination 
a. Witnessed wild “Fourth” in New York 
b. Befriended Heg 
c. Wide missionary activity 
d. Valuable accession on account of his qualities 
e. Was Grundtvigian, however 
D. Eielsen reluctantly organizes 
1. Ole Andrewsen and Paul Anderson his assistants 
a. Paul Anderson went to Beloit College and im- 
bibed “new” ideas 
b. Against “Norwegianism” and certain distinctly 
Lutheran tenets 
2. Andrewsen and Anderson insistent that Eielsen or- 
ganize 
a. Eielsen still dubious—held no brief for “learned” 
apparatus 
b. Finally gave in, in 1846 
3. Meeting held April 13-14, 1846 
a. No minutes kept 
b. Inferences to be drawn from Andrewsen’s letter 
4. Meeting at Middle Point, 1848 
a. Charges brought against Eielsen 
b. Andrewsen and Anderson joined Franckeans 
E. Ejielsen reorganizes forces 
1. P. A. Rasmussen joins Eielsen in 1850 
2. Eielsen called another meeting in 1850 
a. Adopted Old Constitution in final form 
b. Discussion of possible date of Old Constitution 
F, Text of the Old Constitution 
VI. Tue PreusEs—THE KoOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES . . . . II2 


A. Dietrichson’s plans for a synod 
1. Wrote about it in his Retse, published in 1846 
2. Issued call for meeting together with Stub and 
Clausen 
a. Outlined plans for meeting 
b. Document irritating, hence project was defeated 


B. Rev. A. C. Preus succeeds Dietrichson at Koshkonong in 
1850 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
1. Pastors invited to Luther Valley, Rock County, Wis., 
for meeting, Jan. 4-, 1851 
a. Constitution of twelve paragraphs and seventeen 
by-laws accepted 
b. Special Synodical Decisions passed. 
c. Rev. C. L. Clausen elected superintendent when 
Preus refused to serve 
2. Constitution commended to congregations by Clausen 


C. Rev. H. A. Preus came to America in 1851 
1. His coming a great event 
a. To play great part in Norwegian American 
Lutheran church life 
b. Characterization by Rev. J. A. Bergh 


D. Other accessions in 1851 
1. Rev. Nils Brandt 
2. Rev. G. F. Dietrichson 


E. Meeting at Muskego, Feb. 1, 1852 

1. The church organized in 1851 was dissolved in 1852 

2. Constitution and By-Laws of 1851 rewritten 

3. Grundtvigianism condemned in an irrevocable by-law 

4. Awakening of spiritual life in the congregations dis- 
cussed 

5. Church temporarily organized and provisions made 
for its functioning 


F. Relationship to other groups 
1. Attacks from Sorly and rival synods 
2. Efforts to come to an understanding with Eielsen 
a. Met and agreed on program of “love and for- 
bearance,” June 21, 1852 
b. Truce broken by Eielsen—outbreak of fierce 
controversy 
3. Joint Ohio synod enthusiastic 
a. Commended work in Lutheran Standard 
b. Hoped that Norwegians would align selves with 
Ohio 
1. Ohio hoped to assert leadership of Western 
Lutheranism 
2. Foiled by “Missouri” 
3. Had fellowshiped with Reformed at one 
time 
G. Growth 
I. Rev. J. A. Ottesen came in 1852 
2. Congregations grew in strength and number and 
wealth 
3. Rev. V. Koren came in 1853, but too late to help or- 
ganize synod 


XVil 


PAGE 


XVili CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
H. Church meeting at Koshkonong, Feb. 5, 1853 
I. Seven pastors present 
2. Finished draft of constitution 


I. Completion of organization 
1. Constitution accepted at meeting held at Luther Valley, 
Oct. 3-7, 1853 
2. Text of constitution 
3. Remarks 


VII. Divercent SyNopICAL ACTIVITIES 


i. Papers—Personalities—Synodical Issues 
A. Immigrant press arose 
1. Nordlyset in 1847—Demokraten, 1849 
a. Soon changed hands and died after two years 
b. Its editors and owners honored 
2. De Norskes Ven in 1850—short-lived 
3. Kirketidende printed by Hatlestad and Andrewsen 
4. Maanedstidende 
a. Clausen’s proposal in 1847 to issue Norsk Lu- 
therske Maanedsskrift 
I. Outlined plan in detail 
2. Failed to get project started though idea 
survived 
b. Jan. 1, 1851, Revs. A. C. Preus, Clausen, and 
H. A. Stub issued Maanedstidende, 1851-53 
c. Kirkelig Maanedstidende successor to Maaneds- 
tidende, 1855 
5. Emigranten also issued by pastors 
6. Kirketidende attached the pastors 
7. Books also printed in various presses—much spite 
work 


B. Portentous issues shaping themselves 
I. Political situation disquieting 
2. Ejielsen had real issues against Synod men 
a. Charges of Grundtvigianism still made 
b. Eielsen on alert for Wexelsism and Grundtvigi- 
anism 
3. Stub forced to confess error in regard to Grundt- 
vigianism 
4. Clausen also forced to make confession 
C. Controversy over the Third Article of the Apostolic Creed 


1. Controversy over “a” or “the” Holy Chri.tian Church 
2. Conference at Spring Prairie 1855 aroused hopes 

a. Peace established 

b. Reports of meeting bring on renewal of hostilities 
3. Controversy renewed with more fury than ever 


a. Rasmussen again had to make concessions 


PAGE 


136 


CONTENTS xix 


CHAPTER PAGE 
b. Ejielsen would not agree to Rasmussen’s conces- 
sions 
4. Break between Rasmussen and Eielsen 
a. At Primrose meeting, 1856, Rasmussen left Eielsen 


b. Eielsen more set on Old Constitution than ever 


D. Rasmussen and three others form independent faction 
1. Uncertain where they would go 
a, Were pietists—hence not attracted to Synod 
b. Sympathized with orthodox “Missouri” 
c. Northern Illinois Synod had voluble piety but 
lacked orthodoxy 
2. Synod men also wary—fight went on 
E. Strained relations between the Synod and Eielsen 


eee IVERGEN TO OVNODICAL MACTIVITIES wh sls sieetuiiaeineluiebl se nial. ih ESO 


ii. Synodical Differences—‘Laymen’s Activity” 
A. Better relations between Synod and Rasmussen—Thal- 
berg faction 
I. Conference between Thalberg and Ottesen in 1858 
satisfactory 
2. Conference at Luther Valley in 1858 important 
a. Well attended—well prepared for 
b. Mutual confessions 
1. A. C. Preus makes confessions 
2. Discussion of “en” “den” taken up again 
3. P. A. Rasmussen likewise confesses 
c. Failed to agree on “lay activity” 
3. Affinity between Synod and “Missouri” becoming more ~ 
pronounced 
a. Agreed on laymen’s activity and other questions 
b. H. A. Preus’s warm tribute to “Missouri” 
4. Numerous controversies between Synod and others 
a. Rasmussen 
b. Northern Illinois 


B. Scandinavians leave the Northern Illinois Synod 

1. Scandinavians finally give up hope of making North- 
ern Illinois Synod conservative 

2. Crisis when attempts were made to muzzle Prof. L. 
P. Esbjorn 
a. Shifted him from theological to secular subjects 
b. Left Springfield and began school at Chicago 

3. Scandinavians approved his action, thereupon he left 
Northern Illinois 


C. Chicago Conference 1860 
1. Rasmussen introduces topic of “laymen’s activity” 
2. Rejoinder by Synod men 


mK CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


3. Trend of discussion 

a. Article XIV of Augsburg Confession cited 

b. Should be “mutual,” i.e. not in name of others, 
nor to deprive others of right of protest 

c. Prof. Craemer’s theses 

d. Preus’s historical account of question of “lay ac- 
tivity” 

e. Resolutions finally adopted 

f. Koren’s declaration 


D. Prof. Walther solves question satisfactorily at Holden, 
Minn., 1862 
1. The threefold ministry 
a. Universal priesthood of believers 
b. Special priesthood, or the ministry 
c. Emergency priesthood where actual need exists 
2. Theses drawn up and approved by both sides 
3. Rasmussen faction joined Synod, 1862 


LX: .Drvercent: SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES) =. 44 Galea ee ee eee 


iii. Growth—Schools 
A. Synods grew vigorously 
1. Eielsen’s, Scandinavian Augustana, Norwegian Synod 
—all showed growth 
2. Did not keep pace with increase in population, however 


B. Shortage of pastors—Larsen sent to Norway to get more 
1. Few agreed to come, but not enough to supply needs 
2. Only solution was for American churches to educate 
their own ministers 


C. Diversity of emphasis between Synod and two other bodies 
1. Haugean circles (Eielsen, Augustana) emphasized for- 
eign missions 
2. Pastoral, or office-holding class (Norwegian Synod 
leaders), emphasized education 


D. Eielsen’s educational ventures 
1. Doubtful whether Eielsen sent P. Anderson to Beloit 
2. Did recommend education in the Old Constitution 
3. Ejelsen’s Synod established first Norwegian Lutheran 
school in America in 1854. Closed after year 
4. The Deerfield School, 1864, with Aaseréd as principal 
—resigned after two years, school collapsed 


E. Hauge’s synod and education 
1. Land bought for school at Red Wing 1868—work sus- 
pended 1870 
2. Chicago offers plan for self-supporting school 
a. Tie vote between Red Wing and Chicago—lots 
cast—fell on Chicago 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

b. Chicago school sold in 1877 to save at least some 

of property 
3. Hans M. Sande bought Red Wing property in 1878 

a. Took place after Eielsen left brethren after 
Hauge’s Synod was organized in 1875 

b. Eielsen thus had no share in a single successful 
educational venture 


F, Augustana College 
1. Prof. A. Weenaas came in 1868—agitated separation 
from Swedes 
2. Marshall school begun by Norwegians 
a. Retained after separation by Norwegian-Danish 
Augustanans 
b. Moved later to Beloit, Ia., Canton, and Sioux 
See cet) 
3. Remained in N. L. C. A. 


G. Augsburg Seminary 
1. Conference school 
2. Moved to Minneapolis—now in Free Church 
H. Luther College 
I, Committee sent to investigate various schools 
a. Liked “Missouri” best 
b. At Little Iowa, 1857, decided to send students to 


St. Louis 
2. Laur. Larsen called as professer to St. Louis—his 
biography 


a. Contact with Dr. Walther 
b. Implicated in slavery discussion when he came 
North 
3. Meeting at Luther Valley decided to build own school 
in 1861 
a. Site procured at Decorah, Iowa 
b. School opened at Halfway Creek, October 14, 
1861 
4. Work on building begun—completed and dedicated in 
1865 


X. DiIvercENT SyNopICAL ACTIVITIES 


iv. Slavery and Schism 
A. Beginning of the struggle 
1. “X” (“H”) challenged Larsen to give views of St. 
Louis faculty 
2. Larsen replied, giving biblical view of slavery 
3. Larsen’s reply found unsatisfactory by editor of 
Emigranten 


B. Slavery question taken up at Luther Valley meeting in 1861 
1. Larsen introduced subject 


XXI 


PAGE 


202 


XXI1 


CHAPTER 


Ab wh 


CONTENTS 


Opposition mostly from delegates 
The Pastors’ Resolution offered to satisfy laymen 
Laymen answered by counter resolution 
Essential agreement on practical point of abolition 
a. Pastors branded slavery as evil 
b. Laymen branded it as sin 


C. Clausen championed popular idea of slavery 


Ts 


is) 


Retraction of signature to Pastors’ Resolution at 
Luther Valley 
Pastors discussed question with Clausen at Decorah, 
1861 
a. J. A. Ottesen’s irritating analogy to parental 
authority 
b. Clausen disgusted—sends in Retraction—brands 
slavery as sin in itself 
Reply by A. C. Preus—slavery not sin but an evil 
which results from sin 
Others join in 
a. No other pastor on Clausen’s side—assisted by 
Ellefsen and Winslow 
b. On Synod side were H. A. Preus, Ottesen, 
Koren, Muus, Duborg, Schmidt, and Larsen 
c. Public discussion died down 
Private discussions take place 
a. Attempts made to have discussion postponed till 
after the Civil War 
1. Clausen insisted on putting resolution into 
minutes in 1862 
2. Failed to force discussion 
3. Pastors managed to discuss question only at 
private pastoral meetings where they had 
Clausen alone 
b. At Perry meeting, 1864, Clausen introduced topic 
1. Clausen discussed with subcommittee, Muus 
and Duborg 
2. Drew up theses—again Clausen changed his 
mind 
c. H. A. Preus and Ottesen called on Clausen at 
St. Ansgar—fruitless conference 


D. Controversy between Synod and theological faculty at 


De 
2. 


Christiania 
Synod leaders asked faculty at Christiania for opinion 
Their opinion came in 1863 
a. Unsatisfactory—returned 
b. Laur. Larsen and F. A. Schmidt send refutation 
of faculty’s opinion 
c. Faculty ignored Larsen’s and Schmidt’s refutation 


PAGE 


CONTENTS XXill 


CHAPTER PAGE 
3. Church council makes heated reply to faculty 
4. All Acts published in 1866 


E. Finally at meeting at Chicago, 1868, Clausen left Synod 


DUI E PO LVERGENT OY NODICAL ACTIVITIES iiss Alenia Mwai wie ike) erm, 223 
v. Sunday—Absolution—Augustana—Conference 
A. The Sunday question 
1. Orientation and history of the question 
2. Lutheran doctrine on the point from Luther’s Large 
Catechism 
3. Sunday question discussed in thirteen theses by 
Ottesen 
4. These theses taken up at Holden in 1862 
Again discussed at Rock River in 1863 
a. Warm discussion in which Clausen threatened to 
leave meeting 
b. Thirteen theses contracted to five and accepted 


B. Absolution 
I. Question introduced by Larsen in 1861 at Norwegian 
Synod convention 
a. Used Brohm’s eight theses 
b. Elaborated upon them 
c. Muus finds fault with expression, powerful im- 
partation 
1. Criticized theses from pietistic standpoint 
2. Later (1867) defended Synod doctrine 
2. Conference between Augustana and Synod at Jefferson 
Prairie in 1864 
a. Muus’s arguments taken up by Augustanans and 
Eielsen 
b. Issue centered about the content of the Gospel 
c. Failing to agree, each side formulated a thesis 
d. Agreement in 1906—theses quoted 


os 


C. The Conference organized 
1. Weenaas agitated for separation of Norwegians and 
Swedes—took place 1870 
2. At separation from Swedes reorganization was de- 
layed pending a parley with Clausen and Gjeldaker 
3. Meeting at St. Ansgar between temporarily organized 
Augustanans and the Clausen faction 
a. Agreed in doctrine 
b. Drew up constitution for synod which they 
called the Conference 
c. Dissolved Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod 
to join Conference 


XXIV CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
D. Norwegian-Danish Augustana organization completed 
1. Several dissatisfied with St. Ansgar proceedings 
a. Several also remained outside the Conference 
b. Met at Hatlestad’s call, Oct. 5, 1870, and de- 
clared St. Ansgar action invalid 
2. Jefferson Prairie meeting organized Norwegian-Dan- 
ish Augustana Synod on the basis of Hatlestad’s 
constitution, Oct. 12, 1870 
3. Strife between Augustana and Conference 
E. Synodical relationships 
1. The Conference challenged the Norwegian Synod’s 
leadership 
2. Eielsen’s Synod had period of rest 
F. Look into the future—all difficulties resolved between fac- 
tions that were waging war in 1872 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245 
INDEX 


253 


NORWEGIAN AMERICAN 
LUITHERANISM 
UP TO 1872 


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NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM 
UP TO 1872 


CHAPTER I 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 


THE outstanding factor in Norwegian American Lutheranism 
today is the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. This body, 
composed chiefly of Norwegians, was formed by the union in 1917 
of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod of America, Hauge’s 
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of America, and the United Norwegian 
Lutheran Church of America.*’ Although these and numerous lesser 
bodies all sprang from the undivided Lutheran State Church of 
Norway, divisions immediately arose on American soil due to certain 
geographic, social, political, and religious conditions existing in the 
Mother Church at the time of emigration. State control was pow- 
erful enough to hold together these elements in the Church of Nor- 
way; but when the Norwegians came to America they drank deep 
of the American spirit of liberty, and this combined with their indi- 
vidualistic tendencies caused them to break up into numerous small 
bodies, of which three were united in 1917. While the Norwegian 
Lutherans, like other branches of the Christian Church, have experi- 
enced all the bitterness of separation, on the other hand, they have 
had the very rare experience of having a real, bona fide, organic. 
church union. Aside from the fascinating study of the struggles 
and hardships of these immigrant groups as they are striking root 
and adapting themselves little by little to their strange American sur- 
roundings, we must much more reckon with the present Norwegian 
Lutheran Church of America as a vital factor in the American church 
life of the Middle West. Besides counting men of the leading walks 
of life, such as governors and senators, among its members, it had 
grown in 1922 to the quite imposing membership of 492,235.? It 
raises over a million dollars a year under a budget system covering 
the four major branches of its work, namely, foreign missions, home 
missions, charities, and education. According to all indications, the 
Norwegian Lutheran Church of America promises to become as 


*These bodies are commonly called the Synod, Hauge’s Synod, and the 
Umited Church, respectively, and we shall use the shorter names in our 
narrative. 

7H. G. Stub in Lutheran World Almanac, 1922, 64. 


I 


2 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


dynamic in its united efforts as it was wasteful in its divisive, in- 
dividualistic efforts. 

But it is a far cry from the first scattered beginnings of Nor- 
wegian American Lutheranism to the highly developed work of the 
present day. In order to understand these groups it is necessary to 
trace certain features back to their origins in Norway. Elements 
that have a shaping influence in the early factionalism which broke 
the Norwegian American Lutherans up into small groups, are the 
geography of Norway, social and civil revolutions, religious reforms, 
nationalism, a combination of religious and social reform groups, 
and, finally, emigration. 

A Lutheran may live and thrive in any country and under any 
form of church and civil government, but a genuine Norwegian can 
only be produced in Norway. Norway, as is well known, is a long 
narrow strip of land in the northwest portion of the European 
continent. The land is broken up by high mountains into natural 
divisions or districts,> each with its own dialect, local patriotism, 
traditions, and characteristics. Before railroads were tunneled 
through the mountains, the difficulty of travel made communication 
slow and of little importance. As a result of his limited intercourse 
with the outside world, the native of these narrow valleys became 
very stolid and unreceptive toward new impulses and ideas from 
without, whereas, in the depths of his meditative soul, he reflected 
the high grandeur and solid verities by which he was surrounded. 
Clinging tenaciously to ‘what is” in his own little valley against 
all outside influences, he could be swayed, nevertheless, by some 
more aggressive native of the valley once this local “chief” or “king” 
had established his supremacy. This opportunity for local leader- 
ship made for a very high degree of individualism, and for inde- 
pendence in the leaders, who in ancient times had even been able to 
resist successfully all outside interference. But it also made for 
despotism, little concern for the rights of others, and a self-willed 
and arbitrary tendency in determining what should and should not 
receive support. 

In his best moments, the native wondered what could be seen 
beyond the lofty horizon, but his first concern was with the great and 
actual human problem: How shall I provide for myself and my dear 
ones? Wick’s description of Roldal gives an intimate glimpse of 
what could be found in many of the mountain valleys. He says: 


The valley is situated up among the mountains, fully fifty miles 
from the nearest arm of the sea. In the middle of the valley is a 
lake seven miles long and fully twelve hundred feet deep. Here 
around the borders of the lake, and up in the narrow ravine nearby, 
a thousand people make their home, and from their small mountain 


*Some of the districts are Telemarken, Numedalen, Valdres, Sogn, Hede- 
marken, Namdalen, and Roldal. The country is divided into eighteen adminis- 
trative districts or amts, one of which, Stavanger amt, plays an important 
part in Norwegian American church history. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 3 


farms, from goats and reindeer that climb the mountain, and from 
the delicious trout caught in the lake, these easily contented inhabi- 
tants in the remote solitudes of the mountain region, by frugality and 
strict economy, obtain a scant living. The surrounding mountains 
rise five thousand feet above the sea, and on top of these the eternal 
snow has taken up its abode; and here you can take sleigh drives 
in the height of summer, while in the valley below the people can cure 
their hay and bask in the sun, the thermometer showing 68 degrees 
in the shade.’ 


Shorn of the optimism of the well-fed artist from the city who 
comes only in the summer when nature is in a friendly mood, this 
picture becomes full of grim realities. The hard-working native, 
whose crops fail because of short summers, and whose land can 
be tilled only in patches by hand, requiring the labor of himself 
and his wife as well, often lost sight of the glory of the landscape 
in the everyday toil and moil. Too proud to beg, too far removed 
from helpful suggestions by which he might better his lot, he had 
no choice, before emigration was popularized, but to enter, with all 
the physical resources he had developed, into the unequal contest 
with nature and his social environment. Little wonder, then, that, 
when he forgot his hard lot in a “social good time,” he was as violent 
in his hilarity as he was in his work. 

But even if his great efforts brought him very little tangible 
reward in the way of the necessities of life, he was laying up against 
the day of emigration a treasure of intangible value of which he 
had never dreamt. Babcock says: 


Nature is no spendthrift in any part of the Scandinavian penin- 
sula; small economies are the alphabet of her teaching, and her 
lessons once learned are rarely forgotten. Her children of the 
North, therefore, down to the stolidest laborer, mountaineer, and 
fisherman, are generally industrious and frugal, and when they 
migrate to the American West, to enter upon the work of pioneering, 
with its stern requirements of endurance, patience, persistent 
endeavor, and thrift, they start out in the new life with decided 
temperamental advantages over most other immigrants, and even 
over most native-born Americans.” 


This same author characterizes the Norwegians as lovers of 
adventure, as courageous in facing the future, as haters of slavery, as 
having clear, high ideals of personal and political freedom, and as 
adaptable to changes of climate, of conditions, of circumstances; and 
yet they have not degenerated into easily yielding to moods and whims 
even under the rapid changes of New World society. Then the 
author continues: 


*Barthinius L. Wick, “Quakerism in Norway,” in The Friend, 1894 


(Philadelphia), 258. 
°K. C. Babcock, The Scandinavian Element in the United States, 16. 


4 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


The Norwegian is above all democratic. He is simple, serious, 
intense, severe even to bluntness, often radical and visionary, and 
with a tendency to disputatiousness. There is an unmeasured quan- 
tity of passion and imagination in him, as there are unmeasured 
stores of power and beauty in the snows of his mountains and the 
waters of his coast. He has the capacity for high and strenuous 
endeavor, even verging on the turbulent, but he rarely has developed 
the qualities of a great leader. Like the Swede, the Norwegian is 
fond of music, but it is of a different sort. Both in his music and in 
his literature, the dramatic element is strong; no names in the realm 
of literature of the last generation stand higher than those of Ibsen 
and Bjornson, who are first cosmopolitan, then Norwegian. 


This, then, is the Norwegian as he appears to this observer from 
the sidelines. Unfortunately, it shall be our grim task to deal with 
him at his weakest, as his disputatiousness and individualism stand 
out most glaringly in the realm of religion. While his geographic and 
social environment thus contributed toward making him as healthy 
mentally and spiritually as he was physically, political and religious 
factors also play a part in determining his complex makeup. These 
last-named factors now demand our attention. 

The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed tremendous 
changes in the life of the peoples of the world. America had declared 
and won her independence; France had had her revolution; and 
Napoleon had forced practically all Europe into war. Norway was 
then under Denmark, and partly through the incompetence of the 
Danish-Norwegian ruler, partly through Russian aggression, and 
partly through England’s nervousness, Denmark-Norway was forced 
to cast her lot with France and her allies against England and her 
allies. The English demolished the Danish-Norwegian fleet, cap- 
tured and imprisoned thousands of men whom they huddled into 
dreadful prison ships, blockaded the ports, and nearly starved the 
people of Norway.® 

In these dark hours new ideas struck root. The blockade sev- 
ered Denmark and Norway, and Norway had to be put under the 
regency of Prince Charles Augustus. This lovable prince had the 
support of the Norwegian patriot, Count Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg, 
whose difficult task it was to supply the country with the necessities 
of life. With a greater degree of judicial and administrative au- 
tonomy than Norway had enjoyed for centuries, Norwegian patriot- 
ism reached fever heat. When Sweden half-heartedly undertook to 
invade Norway, the starved and ragged bénder (farmers) rose to 
the occasion, and defended their country in a border war against 
the Swedes under General G. M. Armfelt. After a few reverses 
due to failure to concentrate his forces, Armfelt was ordered to with- 
draw from Norwegian soil. Other enemies soon engaged the full 
attention of the Swedish king, forcing him to abandon temporarily 


*The history of Norway is most easily accessible in Knut Gjerset, A His- 
tory of the Norwegian People (Macmillan), 2 vols. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 5 


his designs on Norway. At the peace of Kiel in 1814, however, 
Norway was taken away from Denmark and handed over to Swe- 
den. Norwegian patriotism, however, would not submit to any in- 
dignities at this time; at the meeting of the Norwegian leaders at 
Eidsvold, May 17, 1814, a constitution was drawn up along liberal 
lines, and preparations were made to defend it. After a mere show 
of force, Sweden agreed to recognize the constitution and entered 
into a “union” with Norway which lasted until 1905. In these strenu- 
ous times the bénder had won many new rights, but it was many 
years before they could successfully assert them. This was finally 
accomplished after a combination had been effected between the 
political and religious forces of the land. 

Almost parallel with the political upheaval was a religious revival 
which swept over Norway with irresistible force. In Norway, as 
in other Lutheran lands, there had been a period of orthodoxy which 
inculcated a profound respect for doctrine and the things that were 
held sacred and, withal, put an indelible stamp of churchliness upon 
the solid and unchanging people of the remoter districts. The Bible, 
the Lutheran doctrine, the clerical office, the church, the liturgy, the 
hymns, yes, even the vestments, and practically everything connected 
with the church and its service were given a very elevated position. 
But mere intellectual orthodoxy lacked the power of changing the 
hearts of men; while Christianity was robust and strong at the top, 
it was anemic and powerless at the bottom. 

As a nemesis upon the dead formalism came an aggressive and 
extremely moralistic pietism which presumed to regulate the be- 
havior of men by private precept and governmental injunction. Its 
severe attitude is well illustrated by the following quotation from 
August Herman Francke: “All laughter is not forbidden, for it 
happens, indeed, that even the most pious may so heartily rejoice, 
not over worldly but over heavenly things, that his lips may show 
evidence of his mental delight in a faint laughter. But it easily be- 
comes sinful, and paves the way for great distraction of the mind, 
which soon discovers that it has become too unthoughtful when it 
again wishes to meekly turn to God.” * If pietism sobered the Nor- 
wegian people, it must have been for a relatively short time. 

Pietism did, however, make some contributions that were to be of 
extremely great importance. Earlier in the eighteenth century, the 
pietist, Thomas von Westen, and six of his fellow-pastors (“the 
Seven Stars”) distributed Bibles, tracts, postils, and hymn-books 
among the people in various parts of Norway. This was seed that 
was to bear an abundant harvest. Another event of far-reaching 
importance in the pietistic period was the introduction of the rite 
of confirmation into Norway. By the Ordinance of January 13, 
1736, it was provided that the young communicants should formally 
renew their baptismal vow before their first communion, after being 


™In Christen Brun, Pietismens Begreb og Vdsen, 59, quoted by Gjerset, 
History of the Norwegian Peopie, Il, 332. 


6 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


catechized in church in the presence of the congregation to prove 
that they had mastered the Christian fundamentals.* In order suc- 
cessfully to stand the test, they had to have a memoriter knowledge 
of the Five Parts of Luther’s Small Catechism with appended table 
of duties and prayers. Pontoppidan’s Explanation of Luther’s Cate- 
chism, called Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth unto Godliness), 
which appeared at this time, was soon made a textbook for con- 
firmants. Stories from the Bible, called “Bible History,” were either 
memorized or retold, and portions of the Bible, usually of the New 
Testament, were read. To qualify the children for this somewhat 
rigid examination, a compulsory education law was passed, January 
23, 1739. Though this law was never fully enforced, it represented 
a very deep-seated educational ideal which the peopie very imper- 
fectly shared. The confirmation training was in itself a valuable aid 
to education in general as it was an honor for life to have “stood 
first”? on the “church floor.” Not only has Norway kept in the 
front ranks of literacy to this day as a result of this law, but it has 
meant much to the religious life of Norway that most of the people 
could read, enabling the pious folk to edify themselves at home 
when the pulpit failed in this respect. A third event of great im- 
portance during this period was the passage of the Conventicle Act 
of 1741, forbidding laymen to preach. This was essentially a piet- 
istic measure, though it was to be used against one who had much 
in common with the pietists.° 

Rationalism gained the ascendancy at the University of Copen- 
hagen, 1770-1780, and as Norway had no university of its own the 
young Norwegian pastors were naturally affected also. Toward the 
end of the century violent attacks were directed against the Church, 
Christianity in general, and the clergy in particular. The Danish 
author, Riegels, stamped theology as not only useless, but actually 
dangerous and harmful, and branded the clergy as the enemies of 
enlightenment. Agnostic journals flourished, as, for instance, Otto 
Horrebow’s Jesus og fornuften (Jesus and Reason), and the ex- 
tremely liberal F. C. Wedel-Jarlsberg wrote a book which bore the 
title The Clerical Estate Ought to be Abolished.® Since the church 
was to these men a mere institution for enlightening the people, Chr. 
Bastholm proposed that the term “minister” should be changed to 
“folk instructor’’ and “teacher of religion.” 11 In harmony with 
this conception of their duties, the new pastors took great interest 
in the education and enlightenment of the people, improving the 
school system, establishing libraries and reading circles, centering 
these activities at times in the church building itself. Thus, to edu- 
cate the farmers, the clergy converted their parsonage farms into 

*K. Gjerset, op. cit., II, 334, and A. C. Bang, Den norske kirkes historie, 
417. The age of confirmation was about fourteen or fifteen years. 


* The text of article sixteen of this law is found in M. O. Wee, Haugeanism, 
62. See below, 13. 


*® Den geistlige stand bor afskaffes (1795-97). 
* Osc. Alb. Johnsen, Norges Historie, V-2, 191 ff. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY m4 


demonstration stations; they also wrote books on forestry, raising 
potatoes, killing weeds, vaccinating cattle, and the care of one’s 
health. Indeed, some of these things were discussed even from the 
pulpits, as there is record of at least one pastor who edified his 
flock by preaching on vaccination on a Sunday morning.’? Usually, 
however, these things were carried on outside the church. Though 
the clergy, as a consequence, often neglected their first and foremost 
duties as preachers of the Gospel, in the interest of truth it should 
be said that some of these men were orthodox even according to the 
criteria of later times. 

Up to the close of the century the bishops, with one possible ex- 
ception, were still orthodox. Bishop Christian Schmidt of Chris- 
tiania (1773-1804) was strictly orthodox. Dr. Eiler Hagerup (1778- 
89) and the pious Dr. Hans Tybing (1789-98) in the bishopric of 
Christianssand were moderate pietists. Dr. Ole Irgens, bishop of 
Bergen (1779-1803), was moderately orthodox; his eminent suc- 
cessor, Johan Nordahl Brun, was thoroughly orthodox. By word and 
pen, Bishop Brun defended the old faith, making, for instance, a very 
able reply to the rationalist Bastholm. Dr. Joh. Kristen Schon- 
heyder, bishop of Trondhjem (1788-1803), was affected by this 
new practical spirit, but his theology was of the old orthodox kind.1* 
By the close of the century, then, the bishops were of the old type, 
and it is well known that Johan Nordahl Brun, in particular, kept a 
sharp eye on the pastors in his bishopric lest they fall into rational- 
ism. It is most important to take due notice of this as Bishop A. C. 
Bang, in his otherwise very excellent book on Hans Nielsen Hauge, 
gives the impression through quotations from Hauge that practi- 
cally all of the clergy had gone over to rationalism or were spiritually 
asleep by 1796, when Hans Nielsen Hauge appeared on the scene.'* 
Since this has been widely quoted in Norwegian American circles 
without any reservation or criticism, it is pertinent to notice what 
the well-known D. Thrap writes in Norsk Hustorisk Tidsskrift 
(tredje rakke, tredje bind, 1895), p. 148: ‘We shall not here enter 
into the old controversy about rationalism’s power within the Nor- 
wegian clergy 1796-1804; but it certainly can be stated as an ac- 
cepted fact that the rationalists were not in the majority within the 
Norwegian clergy at that time.’ Nor has Bang, though repeatedly 
challenged to do so, furnished any proof for the sweeping state- 
ments regarding the apostasy of the Norwegian clergy at the time 
of Hauge. Ina general way, however, Bang is correct in giving the 
impression that the spiritual life among the clergy was far from 
what it should have been. 

With the accession of the Dane, Dr. Peder Hanson, to the bishop- 
ric at Christianssand, 1798, Norway had its first really rationalistic 
bishop. Energetically addressing himself to the task of ridding his 
bishopric of all “superstition,” he attempted to reform the ritual and 


* Johnsen, op. cit., 192. * Thid., 
“A. C. Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge og hans Samiid, 27 ft. 


8 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


the vestments, and to introduce the semi-secular Evangelical-Chris- 
tian Hymnal gotten out by a commission in 1798. But his success 
was very limited, wherefore he returned to Denmark. 

Although rationalism was making some headway among the 
clergy, it did not gain much of a footing among the lay people. With 
the reverence for the Church and the Word handed down from the 
days of orthodoxy, and with the impetus pietism gave to family 
devotions, to the reading of the Bible, the postils of Luther and of 
Johan Arndt, and the singing of the powerful hymns of Kingo and 
Brorson in the homes, the people were not dependent upon the clergy 
for their spiritual nourishment; on the contrary, they resisted silently 
but effectively any attempt to remove “superstition” from their midst. 
Barthinius L. Wick quite correctly observes in another connection: 


The Norse people are a religious people, and have always held on 
to the old, discarding the new. As far back as history relates and 
the Saga goes, there has always been a belief in the future state. 
This would be more true in such an unhospitable clime than in 
warmer zones, where life may offer solace. In this cold, dark 
Northland, people find so little sunshine in their earthly habitations, 
which is a continual struggle for bread, [sic] that they feel there 
must be something beyond the grave, where the good can be rewarded 
and where evil can be justly punished. The inhabitants to this day 
believe in fatalism. The waterfalls are so high, the mountains so 
terrific, the storms blow with such a fury, the long dreary winters 
crush out everything, life itself—all this seems to point to inevitable 
necessity. ‘‘So far and no further’ runs the maxim: “God hath so 
ordained,’ “It should so happen,’ “Man plans but the creator 


rules.” ” 


Since these “‘superstitions’’ offered relief from a stern and un- 
yielding nature, it would take more than one generation of ration- 
alistic clergy to counteract them. The natives, furthermore, were 
not ready to accept new ideas with what they regarded as undue 
haste; one or two generations could easily afford to test these “new” 
ideas first. 

Closely connected with this slow change of opinion were other 
geographic factors which made for the slow progress of rationalism. 
New ideas could be disseminated only very slowly; and then, due to 
the limited intercourse between the valleys at this time, even where 
new ideas did penetrate, they received but scanty attention. The only 
effective way of having the ideas disseminated would be to fill the 
parishes with rationalistic clergy from Copenhagen University, which, 
in the face of the open hostility of some of the bishops, and the 
antipathy of the people, was a slow process requiring the utmost cau- 
tion and patience. This enforced reticence on the part of the ration- 


% The Friend, 1894, 258. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 9 


alistic clergy possibly accounts, to a large extent, for the strange 
phenomenon Bishop Bang describes, when he says: 


As far as our fatherland [Norway] is concerned, it is evident 
that, on the whole, the people did not understand the new doctrine. 
One or another possibly noticed that the new pastor preached dif- 
ferently from his predecessor; but he could but faintly grasp the 
meaning of the unclear modes of expression in which the new 
doctrine was clothed. On the other hand, virtue and morality were 
preached so that the morals of the people were not broken down. 
But spiritual death and indifference went apace.” 


To summarize, then, the obstacles in the way of a rapid spread 
of rationalism were: (1) The reverence for the Church and the 
Word since the days of orthodoxy; (2) the ability of the common 
people to read the devotional literature since the days of pietism; (2) 
the orthodoxy of the bishops and their general hostility to rational- 
ism; (4) the stolidity of the people and their clinging to “what is” ; 
(5) the difficulty of travel, making the rapid dissemination of new 
ideas practically impossible: (6) the slowness of the process of 
filling the parishes with rationalistic pastors; and (7) the lack of 
understanding and appreciation of these rationalistic tenets. In the 
face of these very great difficulties, it is exceedingly improbable that 
rationalism, since its breaking through in Denmark as late as 1770- 
80, should have been able in the space of less than twenty years, by 
the time Hauge began his work in 1796, so entirely to submerge 
practically all spiritual life in Norway that Hans Nielsen Hauvce. 
like a second Noah, alone rode safely above the waves of rational- 
ism and became the sole progenitor of the spiritual race in Norway. 
Such a claim has a strong dramatic appeal, to be sure; but when it 
also makes a serious demand to be accepted as historic fact, its pre- 
tensions must be curtailed. Constant repetition of this claim has so 
thoroughly convinced great portions of the Norwegian American 
Church of its validity, that anything less than a sweeping acknowl- 
edgment of it has been regarded as an unfriendly act over against 
this really great man. Men of more enthusiasm but less learning 
than Bishop Bang have gone so far in this matter that their hero 
has become a rock which has deflected the flow of Norwegian 
Lutheranism into several channels. Since there have always been 
those who could not subscribe to the full Haugean program, and 
since there have been those who trace their spiritual ancestry farther 
back than Hauge and say that Hauge himself was a child of the piety 
that had survived rationalism’s onslaughts, these, out of respect for 
their spiritual forbears, feel that they must strongly protest against 
this sharp break in historic Christianity. Hauge was a child of the 
church he revived, not a missionary from abroad. Indeed, much of 
his strength lay in this, that he gave expression to the piety which 
lay dormant in the hearts of the people. In this connection it must 


* A. C. Bang, Den norske kirkes historie, 


10 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


also be noted that Bishop Bang was merely quoting Hauge, who, 
as a preacher of repentance, was painfully sensitive to the lack of 
active spirituality about him.’’ 

While it is highly improbable that rationalism should have swept 
away practically all piety, leaving only spiritual darkness back of the 
bright and shining figure of Hauge, conditions were admittedly none 
too good in the State Church of Norway at his appearance on the 
scene. Even worse charges than rationalism must be hurled against 
some of the clergy; they were outright lazy—too lazy, in fact, to be- 
come rationalists. Owing their appointment directly or indirectly to 
the Danish crown, they were first and foremost officials of the State, 
with no sympathetic contact with the people. They kept within the 
law and performed in a perfunctory and listless manner their duties 
as the law prescribed; but more than this was necessary to energize 
the church forms and to vitalize the spiritual life of the masses. 
Worst of all, the bishops were relatively powerless in the face of 
a situation like this. And yet we find such men as Bishop Johan 
Nordahl Brun of Bergen and others working with a zeal surpassed 
only by Hauge himself. Brun, in particular, was a powerful preacher 
and an excellent writer; and by force of personality rather than 
the inherent power of his office as bishop, he administered the af- 
fairs of his diocese in a fearless and highly exacting manner. Nor 
was the influence of this dominating character limited to the diocese 
of Bergen. If such men are not in Hauge’s class, they certainly 
deserve at least a very large place as preparing the way for him, 
and supporting him in principle, if not exactly in deed. It is his- 
torically unjustifiable, therefore, to discount all that had been done 
before Hauge’s time in order to enhance the glory of Hauge; Hauge 
was indebted to the past fully as much as the present is indebted to 
Hauge. 

Although the extreme claims for Hans Nielsen Hauge must 
be discounted, a saner and truer estimate of his work will still give 
him the first and most glorious place in the history of the Norwegian 
Church. Born of peasant stock near Sarpsborg in 1771, the gifted 
though quiet and introspective lad was given only such schooling as 
the common district school afforded. At thirteen his deeply reli- 
gious nature was stirred by an accident in which he came near 
drowning. Staggered at the fearful thought that he might have gone 
into eternity unprepared, he addressed himself to the task of set- 
ting his house in order by an intensive study of the Bible and such 
devotional literature as he found in his home. In due time he found 
peace for his troubled soul, but he was soon disturbed by the thought 
that countless of his fellow-men all about him were not at peace 
with their God. When it became apparent to him that the clergy 
were not leading men to God, he did not let the fact that he was un- 
ordained and relatively untutored deter him, but set out to preach 


_ “In Hans Nielsen Hauge og hans Samtid, 30, Bang says: “This is Hauge’s 
view of his age.” 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY II 


the Word of God in the full conviction of his earnest soul. For eight 
years, beginning in 1796, he carried on his work in spite of all diffi- 
culties, with an almost incomprehensible ardor, walking about ten 
thousand miles afoot from place to place, preaching from two to four 
times a day, doing personal work, writing hundreds of tracts and 
devotional books, and carrying on an extended personal correspon- 
dence.*® Besides this he also carried on a number of practical enter- 
prises. He established a paper mill, a stamping mill, a bone mill, a 
flour mill, a tannery, a foundry for church bells and small cannon.’® 
And during the English blockade he was released from prison to 
manufacture salt as he was about the only one in the land who could 
do this. He engaged in trade in Bergen and along the sea coast, 
and in thousands of ways helped his adherents in their practical af- 
fairs. An indefatigable worker himself, he demanded industry and 
thrift, not laziness and idling, from his adherents. 

In his preaching, this modest and self-sacrificing layman swept 
everything before him. Driven by a boundless zeal and speaking 
from personal experience about the great questions of the soul, his 
eloquence rose to such heights that he touched the heart and mind 
and conscience of everyone who came within the reach of his soul- 
arresting message. With his simple message of sin and grace culled 
from his Bible and postils, he became the personification of God’s 
wrath against sin and of his infinite grace to the sinner. As Luther’s 
theses struck a reverberant note in Germany, so did Hauge’s simple 
but compellingly earnest preaching reverberate to the remotest parts 
of Norway. Borne on wings of angels, the spirit-filled message 
could have made no profounder impression; the man Hauge was 
completely consumed with zeal, and his message, as from another 
world, burned itself into the soul of Norway. From far-off hill 
and hamlet reéchoed the Pentecostal cry: ‘What shall we do to 
be saved?” At the mill, in the field, in the store, the question of 
eternal salvation was discussed both privately and publicly. Reti- 
cence is a national trait of the Norwegian; yet the reticent and silent 
Norwegian broke forth into rapture over this new thing. Laymen, 
like the Galilean fishermen, left their occupations, and began preach- 
ing about the one thing they knew. Possibly few revivals have so 
thoroughly gripped a whole nation as this did; never, at least, has the 
Spirit of God been so active among the average men and women 
in Norway as at this time. 

Hauge denounced wickedness in high and low places. Espe- 
cially strong was his denunciation of the clergy who were not doing 
their full duty. They were spiritually dead; they were dumb mouths, 
dogs who did not bark, watchers who gave no cry. While thus at- 
tacking the dead orthodoxy and the nerveless rationalism among the 
clergy, he was intensely loyal to the Lutheran State Church and did 
not have the remotest idea of leaving it. Even at the end of his 
life, after he had suffered every form of persecution at the hands 


* A.C. Bang, ut supra, 135. ~M. O. Wee, Haugeanism, 26. 


12 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


of the State Church officials, Hauge in his testament advised his 
followers to be loyal to the Church. This revealed a beautiful side 
of his character; as a true saint of God he suffered everything for 
His cause, but harbored no ill will against his persecutors. 

It was inevitable that Hauge should clash with the clergy. Article 
XIV of the Augsburg Confession requires that “no one should pub- 
licly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments, unless he be 
regularly called.” The clergy, therefore, stoutly held that Hauge had 
no right to teach publicly since no local congregation had called him. 
Pious men like Bishop Johan Nordahl Brun and others, whose sym- 
pathies Hauge naturally should have retained, were chilled in their 
ardor when Hauge went into business in Bergen in 1801, as they felt 
he was capitalizing his popularity as a preacher. This “unprofes- 
sional” action these men were great enough to have overlooked, had 
there not lurked a grave menace back of it. Since Hauge’s business 
was carried on for and by Haugeans, under the stress of clerical and 
governmental opposition, organized business might easily go over 
into organized dissent.?° While the opponents took no steps to block 
Hauge’s work, they were either openly unfriendly to him or else 
passively disinterested. 

Hauge and his followers were repeatedly arrested for being 
“idlers” and “tramps,” against whom there were stringent laws. 
When Hauge and the traveling lay preachers were thus accosted, 
they were brought before the court of the house of correction (tugt- 
hus ret). In the country, this court was presided over by the 
county judge (sorenskriver) ; in the city, by the town judge (by- 
foged). No counsel was granted for the defense in order that “‘jus- 
tice might not be unnecessarily delayed through parleyings and tech- 
nicalities.” The guilty were given a term of arrest in the house of 
correction, the length of the term being decided by the commission 
of the poor, consisting of the pastor, the elders, and two men ap- 
pointed by the sheriff.?4 

The decisive opposition, however, came from the rationalistic 
clergy. Rationalism was here confronted by a force which was so 
diametrically opposed to its own very being that it either had to give 
Haugeanism a mortal thrust or be itself put out of existence. Char- 
acteristically enough, Bishop Peder Hansen sent in a most violent 
report about Hauge, dated April 24, 1804. The Department of 
State took no immediate notice of it, but when further complaints 
came in to the effect that Hauge was also engaged in illegal com- 
mercial enterprises, the case took on a more serious aspect, as Hauge 
was not only violating a dead-letter law, the Conventicle Act of 
1741, but he was transgressing the recently enacted Monopoly Law of 
1797. 


Article sixteen of the Conventicle of 1741 reads: 


rah BE Thrap, “Hans Hauges Fangsling” (imprisonment) in Historisk Tids- 
skrift, tredje rakke, tredje bind, 1895, 152. 
=™M. O. Wee, op. cit., 24. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 13 


It shall, furthermore, be absolutely prohibited for anyone, either 
a man or a woman, married or unmarried, to travel from place to 
place, alone or in company with others, or to hold meetings. Each 
person shall remain in his own particular calling, live quietly, support 
himself honestly, eating his own bread; but people may visit each 
other, in order to help and edify each other privately. No public 
gatherings must be allowed. But women, especially unmarried 
women, shall remain where they are, serve, work, and edify them- 
selves quietly and learn from others, as the Scriptures enjoin, and 
as it behooves their sex. Let them not imagine that they have any 
call to teach and preach. It shall be allowed, however, if they are 
fit for such work and if anyone desires to engage them to teach 
their children at home, with the consent of the authorities and under 
supervision of the minister, to read to the girls and to instruct them 
in Christianity and in branches of knowledge that would properly 
benefit them. They shall also be permitted, if they are fit for it, 
and if they are called to it, quietly to be of service to their own sex, 
by way of teaching and edifying. But this must not cause any stir, 
nor draw any gathering.” 


The Monopoly Law of 1797 provided that no one but those 
who had been granted a royal privilege by the Chamber could trade 
with the people along the coast. Hauge’s ship Anne Helene, with 
Knud Hellestvedt as captain, made a trip north at Christmas time, 
1803, with the result that Hellestvedt was arrested January 5, 1804. 
Since the skipper sailed in Hauge’s name and the profits were to 
be used “‘to convert men,” the matter was taken up by the Depart- 
ment of State, June 23, 1804. On October 24, 1804, Hauge was 
arrested on the double charge of violating the Conventicle Act of 
1741 against lay preaching, and the Monopoly Law of 1797. 

While the government may have acted within its formal rights 
in arresting Hauge on these two counts, the officials certainly should 
have given Hauge a speedier trial. With the exception of a short 
respite in 1808, when he was released to manufacture salt for his 
countrymen during the trying times of the English blockade, Hauge 
was detained from 1804 till 1814. At the end of this time he 
was found guilty of the following offenses: (1) he had traveled 
and preached contrary to the Conventicle Act of 1741; (2) he had 
encouraged others to do so; and (3) he had used harsh language 
against the clergy. Unmindful of the fact that his long term in 
prison might have been punishment enough, the court imposed a fine 
of one thousand rigsdaler and costs.?8 Broken in health and penni- 
less, he was unable to continue his work; his adherents, the Haugeans 
now numbering thousands, therefore bought a small farm, Bred- 
ge for him near Christiania, where he resided until his death in 
1824.74 

This deplorable affair has had unfortunate results not only in 

bad., 62) 


pA ae: Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge og hans Samtid, 473. 
“Knut Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People, II, 404. 


14 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


the Church of Norway, but also in America. There is no doubt 
that Hauge suffered great injustice. It is also quite likely that the 
clergy, with the rationalists in the lead, used the machinery of gov- 
ernment to subdue this persistent and uncompromising preacher of 
righteousness. Religion was an absolute issue in those days; Hauge 
himself, at least, certainly did not consider himself the exponent 
of doctrinal compromise. He struck some very vigorous and telling 
blows at the system that struck back and crushed him. No matter 
what the merits of the case were, it is true that in the popular mind 
Hauge has stood as a martyr, “the living zealous preacher of Chris- 
tianity, who was rewarded by his government by prison and fine 
for his good deeds. It has long been evident to many,” the emi- 
nent jurist D, Thrap continues, “that he could not remain standing 
in this light, when a closer examination of his life’s work and the 
times in which he lived could be made.’?® Probably the popular 
estimate should be somewhat qualified in the light of Dr. Thrap’s 
investigations. 

In the meantime, the movement was gaining friends among the 
clergy. Contrary to expectations, there were no outbursts of fanati- 
cism as was the case in connection with the Herrnhut movement; 
indeed, under the wise guidance of Johan Haugvaldstad, Hauge’s 
successor, excesses were eliminated and the overzealous were curbed. 
There was sufficient positive fruit to awaken the admiration of the 
clergy, and the fair-minded among them were not slow in recogniz- 
ing this. Rev. Claus Pavels estimated the movement thus: “That 
he [Hauge] has founded a sect which still exists, the members of 
which distinguish themselves by piety, virtue, good order, diligence, 
and peacefulness, in short, nearly everything which constitutes civic 
virtue, and tends to strengthen society, none but the most biased can 
deny.” *® In 1815 two theological professors,?* two bishops, and fif- 
teen clergymen visited Hauge at Bredtveldt, and many of those who 
had opposed him were now openly friendly. With characteristic great- 
ness of mind Hauge bore no grudge against his persecutors, and he 
certainly did not blame the clergy as a whole for the injustice done him. 

Soon after Hauge’s death, however, other factors entered in to 
form a cleavage between laity and clergy all along the line. Dr. 
Gjerset describes the long established conditions which were largely 
to blame for this: 


The cleavage in Norwegian society was caused by the Reformation 
when the Danish language was introduced as the church and literary 
language. The city population and the official class, including the 
clergy, which were strongly mixed with foreign elements, had 
thoroughly assimilated the Danish language and culture, while the 


*TD Thrap, op. cit., 167. * Quoted by K. Gjerset in op. cit., II, 405. 

* Svend Borchmann Hersleb and Stener Johannes Stenersen, the two pro- 
fessors of theology at the newly established Royal Frederik University at 
Christiania (now Oslo). A. C. Bang, op. cit., 485. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 15 


rural population still spoke their own tongue and adhered to their 
old customs. Under the shelter of absolutism in the period of the 
union with Denmark, which fostered a distinct aristocratic spirit 
among the cultured classes, this condition had assumed a rigid per- 
manence, and the bonder had become sharply differentiated from the 
city population and official class, not only in customs and language, 
but also in views and sympathies. The men of Eidsvold had created 
liberal political institutions suited to the most democratic society, 
but during the great European reaction, 1814-1830, it became evident 
that the old spirit of class prejudice, desire for special privileges, and 
the antipathy to the common people still prevailed in higher social 
circles. The officials showed strong bureaucratic tendencies, and 
continued to rule in the old spirit, even under the new constitution. 
Their views and tastes remained to a large extent unchanged, and 
they were glad to settle down to the old ways, not thinking that the 
great political change would necessitate a radical social readjustment. 
What the result would be if the bonder should assume political leader- 
ship was a thought which had not yet dawned upon their mind, as they 
do not seem to have considered such a state of affairs to be within 
the realm of possibility.” 


But the officials and bdénder were soon called upon to face the 
new situation. The Norwegian poet, patriot, and liberal, Henrik 
Wergeland, scrutinized the whole social order and tested it by what 
was Norwegian; and Norwegian, according to the constitution, as he 
understood it, was synonymous with democracy, possibly of a rather 
advanced French revolutionary type. Huis worthy literary opponent 
was Johan Sebastian Welhaven, who agreed with the conservative 
upper classes that Norway still had to depend on Denmark for her 
higher culture. Incidentally, this was a defense of the present sys- 
tem with a privileged upper class. The struggle between the giants 
raged from 1830 till Wergeland’s death in 1845.” 

While these storms were raging on the literary peaks, the bonder 
below were not idle spectators. As early as 1821 they had made a 
slight demonstration and again in 1830. In 1833 John Neergaard 
from Nordmor, western Norway, gathered the bodnder into politi- 
cal meetings, described the hard times, said these were due to the 
upper classes who used their majority in the Storthing to shift the 
taxes to the people, and by the aid of his Olabok stirred the lower 
classes to open revolt, so that in the elections of 1833, for the first 
time in Norwegian history, the boénder gained a majority in the 
national legislature. This assertion of power by the bénder was 
due to the awakened democratic spirit and the feeling of self-respect 
engendered in the common man growing out of the Haugean move- 


* Knut Gjerset, op. cit., II, 465. 

® As tangible fruits of Wergeland’s efforts can be mentioned the Dissenter 
Law of 1845, the annulment of the Conventicle Act of 1741, and the amend- 
ment to the Constitution in 1851 granting Jews the right to reside in Norway 
with all the privileges enjoyed by other citizens. 


16 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


ment. With the Haugean, Ole Gabriel Ueland of Stavanger, as 
leader, the bonder waged a very bitter fight in the legislative as- 
sembly and other public forums against the office-holding estates 
(among them the clergy), and forced these to yield on many points 
of privilege and prestige, thus elevating the lower classes to a much 
higher sphere of opportunity and self-esteem. After repeated re- 
buffs, they succeeded in 1836 in wresting the power of local govern- 
ment from the upper classes. As we see it now, the bonder were 
entirely within their rights in this, and though they may have gone 
to extremes at times, they stopped far short of what was done in 
other places in Europe a decade later. Possibly the upper classes 
should be given some credit for not driving the lower classes to 
violence by obstinate resistance to the latter’s demands. 

Our interest in this whole social revolution is to show that the 
Haugean movement, which started as a purely religious “awakening,” 
now had assumed a somewhat different character, its new program 
attracting elements that were not moved primarily by religious mo- 
tives. The breach between the clergy and Hauge which had begun 
to heal was torn wide open when the clergy and the bonder were 
placed on opposite sides in this most bitter struggle for power. 
Hauge was a bonde, and it was indelibly stamped upon the popular 
mind that he had innocently suffered at the hands of the overbear- 
ing officials and clergy. In the heat of the struggle, Hauge’s blood 
was regarded as being particularly on the head of the clergy, and it 
must needs take a long time to erase this impression after it had 
been so thoroughly impressed upon the popular mind. Although 
he had long since died in peace, Hauge was now hurled like a huge 
boulder into these surging waters of human passion, and while his 
personality was not able to deflect the stream so as to make it run 
altogether in the direction of the bdnder, it did act as a point of 
cleavage between lay and academic Christianity. There was a crass 
and unworthy scramble for power on both sides, and it was most 
unfortunate that the immigrants who began arriving in America in 
1821, 1825, 1836, and later, should bring with them a vivid recol- 
lection of a social struggle in which they generally sided with Hauge- 
anism against the State Church. 

The cleavage was not so evident in Norway after a comparatively 
short time. Johan Haugvaldstad, ever the worthy follower of Hauge, 
tried to curb the unruly elements in his effort to bring the move- 
ment back into purely religious channels. A great aid to the work 
of reunion had arisen in university circles in 1840, in the form of 
a spiritual awakening which, though different from Haugeanism, 
yet in many ways in its earlier stages appealed to the Haugeans. We 
have noticed that Stener Johannes Stenersen and Svend Borchmann 
Hersleb were appointed as professors of theology at the Norwegian 
university founded in 1813. These men, together with Wilhelm 
Andreas Wexels, catechist and preacher at Our Saviour’s Church in 
Christiania, were greatly influenced by the Grundtvigian awakening 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 17 


in Denmark. This was to a great extent an academic awakening with 
a wholesome emphasis on the Means of Grace, but it was in great 
danger of overemphasizing the importance of the so-called Apostles’ 
Creed and the baptismal formula. It also taught a conversion after 
death. These elements were either suppressed or not emphasized 
in Norway by its earlier exponents ; consequently when a wholesome 
religious influence radiated from the university, the Haugeans were 
very much gratified. When another awakening, anti-Grundtvigian 
in the above respects, began in 1850 under the later theological pro- 
fessors, Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari, the breach between 
lay and academic Christianity was nearly altogether healed. In the 
next decade concessions were voluntarily made on both sides, the 
laymen being given more responsibility in the church life, and 
also abandoning some of their rather extreme claims in_ re- 
gard to the performance of ecclesiastical functions. To the clergy as 
a class was restored the undisputed right to perform purely clerical 
functions, the office of the ministry thereby regaining some of the 
prestige it had lost during the social revolution. 

There is apparently no reason why this gratifying result could 
not have been brought about on American soil even more quickly 
than in Norway. But the Norwegian Church had the advantage of 
being held together until the breach was healed. In America there 
was no governmental force that could act as surgeon’s stitches; once 
the wound was broken open it began to fester, and it could only 
heal by growth from the bottom and out. The immigrant to Amer- 
ica, hot with the issues that were being fought out when he emi- 
grated, and receiving no new impulses from the homeland, 
stopped short at those issues which to him became fixed until sub- 
merged by other issues in his own American community. But the 
fundamental part of him, the very heart of his being and character, 
was always bound up with Norway as it was, or, rather, as he 
thought it was, when he emigrated. And since patriotism, with its 
erand mixture of geography, national characteristics, external and 
internal politics, social and financial conditions, had been most inti- 
mately connected with religion and all that it meant of complications 
and struggles, the immigrant, in trying to reproduce as much of this 
as he could on American soil, found himself in a quandary. It is, 
for instance, difficult to be a mountaineer on the wide Western 
prairies; but this great problem of adjustment he solved far better 
than his church problems, possibly because the former did not touch 
his past as vitally as the latter did. As a result of the religious com- 
plexities which were uppermost in the minds of men when they 
emigrated, the various Norwegian groups in America founded a 
great many church bodies, which, though they were a crude mosaic 
of conflicting and glaring colors, still furnished a variety of choice 
that should satisfy the desires of nearly anyone. Church contro- 
versies possibly also appealed to the combative spirit in these Vikings. 
On the whole, one must say that much energy has been wasted, but 


183 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


now that the results are pooled by the union of 1917, there do 
seem, also, to be quite gratifying results. 

We have thus accounted for the “Norwegian” and the “Lutheran” 
part of our subject. We must now account for the last portion, 
namely, how the Norwegians came to America and now fittingly add 
“American” to their name. 

As a matter of fact, Norway was overcrowded and therefore 
unable to furnish sustenance and employment to all her people. Dr. 
Flom asserts that eighty-five percent of the immigrants to America 
were from the rural districts, and he stoutly holds, in opposition to 
R. B. Anderson,®® that not religious persecution, but material con- 
- siderations, played the most important role in promoting the emigra- 
tion. Dr. Flom summarizes the influences that have promoted Scan- 
dinavian emigration to the United States in the nineteenth century 
in the order of their importance as follows:*+ First, the prospect 
of material betterment and the love of a freer and more independent 
life; second, letters from relatives and friends who had emigrated 
to the United States and visits of these again to their native country ; 
third, the advertising of agents of emigration; fourth, religious per- 
secution at home; fifth, church proselyting; sixth, political oppres- 
sion; seventh, military service; and eighth, the desire for adven- 
ture. Fugitives from justice, he says, have been few, and paupers 
and criminals in the Scandinavian countries are not sent out of the 
country ; they are taken care of by the government. 

Most of these causes are self-explanatory. The Quakers and 
other non-Lutheran sects, particularly the Mormons, would come 
under the class of those who proselyte and then induce their mem- 
bers to emigrate. In the earlier period, political oppression would 
possibly play a more prominent part. Military service was com- 
pulsory, but it did not last long; it acted chiefly as a crisis at which 
the young man would have to make up his mind as to whether he 
should emigrate or remain in the homeland. Dr. Flom has gone 
into the causes for emigration quite thoroughly, and in Chapter VI 
of his book he makes a good case for placing the hope of material 
gain first. Other authors bear him out in this. In fairness to Prof. 
R. B. Anderson, who makes religious persecution the first cause, 
it must be said that he wrote about the period between 1821 and 
1840. But even then “persecution” took place only toward the end 
of that period; the Sloop party certainly cannot be compared to the 
“Mayflower” Pilgrims in point of suffering in the homeland. 

Mr. Gottenborg, in an article in the Nordmandsforbund, April, 
1913, presented the whole case of emigration statistically. It will 
be noted that he also agrees that the material rather than the reli- 
gious interests were paramount. He says: 


”R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration (1821-1840); 
its Causes and Results (Madison, Wis., 1896), 45 ff. 

“G. T. Flom, A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States 
from Earliest Beginning to Year 1848 (Iowa City, Iowa, 1909), 88. 


PRELIMINARY SURVEY 19 


While the number of emigrants in the period 1836-1842 only 
reached a few hundred, it rose in 1843 to 1600, and has since not 
fallen below 1000 a year. In 1847 the potato crop in Norway was 
poor, times were hard, grain prices high, and economic conditions 
generally unfavorable. For this reason emigration rose to 4000 
or 5000, and this number remained quite constant with few excep- 
tions from 1851 to 1865, though the economic conditions improved. 

. . In 1866 emigration increased suddenly to 15,455 from 4000 the 
year previous, owing chiefly to the closing of the Civil War, which 
had hindered emigration. In the following years the number was 
gradually reduced from 10,357 in 1873 to about 4000 in 1874-1878, 
because of improved economic conditions, extensive railway con- 
struction, and other large enterprises. But in the eighties another 
period of hard times came. Railway construction ceased, and the 
emigration reached a volume greater than ever before. In 1882 
the number rose to 28,804, and during that whole decade it exceeded 
20,000 per year, except in 1884-1886 and 1889, when the number was 
13,000 to 15,000 a year. The same conditions existed in the beginning 
of the nineties. In 1893 about 19,000 emigrated, but in 1894 the 
number was reduced to 5642 because of good times. . . . In 1899, 
when the times again became hard, the number rose again. In 1900 
it reached 11,000, in I90I 13,000; it soon increased to 20,000, and 
in 1903 it reached about 27,000. It remained above 20,000 till 1907, 
but it dropped in 1908 to 8500 because of hard times in America. 
In I909 it rose again to 16,000, and in 1910 to almost 19,000, but 
dropped again in I9gII to about 12,000, and in I912 to 9105. 


According to Mr. Gottenborg’s calculations, 707,986 persons 
emigrated from Norway in the period from 1850 to I911.*? Since 
by far the greatest proportion of these are of the farmer class, it 
was only natural that they should settle in the great farming belts 
of the middle-western states. There are approximately two and a 
quarter million people of Norwegian extraction in the United States 
at present.** 

We have thus viewed the Norwegian Lutheran at his home in 
Norway; we have seen the Church in unity of spirit and body; we 
have seen the unity of spirit cleft, but the body held together by the 
power of the State; we have seen how the Norwegians have emi- 
grated to America; and in the following chapters we shall see how 
the immigrant transplants to American soil the Church which with 
him touches all the tender roots of his existence. 

Breaking the homeland ties to embark upon the uncertain quest 
of a better home in a strange land is not done without a severe test 
of the emigrant’s fortitude and determination. Bravely he decides 

* Quoted by Knut Gjerset in History of the Norwegian People, II, 600. 
For a full bibliography on Scandinavian emigration to America see Kendric 
Charles Babcock, The Scandinavian Element in the Umted States (University 
of Illinois Press), 181-204. 

* QO. M. Norlie in History of the Norwegian People in America (1925), 
313, estimates that there were 2,168,355 people of Norwegian extraction in 
America in 1920. 


20 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


to go. He packs his modest belongings into a home-made chest, ar- 
ranges for passage, and is about to leave. Suddenly it dawns upon 
him that he is leaving much. He looks to the hilltops; he goes 
out into the fields; he caresses the dog and the favorite horse. He 
bids farewell to his neighbors. He winces a little when he takes 
leave of a certain playmate of his youth; but there is a gleam of 
hope in this as he has dreamt dreams together with her, and these 
dreams must come true. Dreams are very comforting, and under 
their spell he is almost happy. 

He goes home. At home, however, his optimism fails him. He 
suddenly realizes that his parents are old; today they are very old 
and very quiet. Still he must go. He resolutely burns the bridges 
by a hasty though tender farewell. Not much is said—what can 
be said? He sets out bravely; but he knows that though mother 
smiled when he went there were tears in her smile—and she prob- 
ably does not smile now as evening comes on and memories besiege 
her. Father does not say much; he never does. But the devotions 
in that lonely home are fervent that evening, and they pray God 
to comfort them and to keep and prosper their boy. And God in 
Heaven has heard many of these prayers. 


CHAPTER Il 
IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 


IN a very peculiar sense, Norwegians have a claim to American 
citizenship. The exploits of the Norsemen in Sicily, Constantinople, 
France, England, and the Isle of Man need merely be mentioned to 
conjure up a whole array of instances of devastations, to be sure, but 
also—and this is too often forgotten—of fine systems of government 
and swift executions of justice. It was only natural that this fear- 
less and enterprising race of Vikings should satisfy its curiosity in 
regard to lands lying relatively near its base of operations on the 
Western Hemisphere, once it had reached Iceland. 

According to the venerable Prof. R. B. Anderson,? the Norse- 
men discovered Iceland about the year 860 and fourteen years later 
laid the foundations of a democracy that was to last for four hun- 
dred years. Gunnbjorn Ulfson from Norway first sighted land to 
the westward of Iceland, and a century later, that is, about 9&1, 
Eiric the Red set out to find and explore this land.2 After a suc- 
cessful search, he spent two years exploring the land which he called 
Greenland in order to attract settlers. Since parts of Iceland and 
all of Greenland belong to the Western Hemisphere, this discovery 
is of extraordinary importance. 

Once the Norsemen had thus penetrated within striking distance 
of the American mainland, it was only natural that these intrepid 
rovers of the sea should discover America. So they did. Bjarne 
Herjulfson probably touched American soil in 986; Leiv Eiriksson ° 
certainly did in the year 1000.4 Unequal to the task of settling Vin- 
land the Good, as they called the new land, and unable to subdue 
the Skrelings, as they called the American Indians, the Norsemen 
finally, after the Black Plague, were compelled to leave America to 
the red men. The last known voyage to America took place in 
1347, three hundred and fifty years after its discovery, and only 
one hundred and forty-five years before its rediscovery by Colum- 


*“First Chapter of Civilization on the American Continent” in Scandinavia, 
January, 1924 (Fargo, N. D.), 48. 

?Knut Gjerset, History of Iceland (Macmillan), 93 ff. 

* Spelling Leiv Eiriksson determined by the Department of Church and 
Education in Norway. Pronounce ei as in eight. 

*R. B. Anderson, America not Discovered by Columbus. In the fourth 
edition of this work is found Paul Barron Watson, “A Bibliography of the 
Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America,” a paper prepared as a thesis for one 
of Dr. Emerton’s history classes at Harvard. 

21 


22 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


bus. Just how much information Columbus got from these hardy, 
pelagic voyagers is somewhat uncertain, although Prof. R. B. An- 
derson, after sixty years of research, declares emphatically—and 
furnishes proof for his statement—that there is a definite connection 
between the voyages of the Norsemen and of Columbus.’ At any 
rate, the Norsemen are not to be regarded as “newcomers” to 
America. 

Hand in hand with the work of exploration went religious and 
missionary work. Though Eiric the Red never relinquished the Asa 
faith, many of his contemporaries did so after the year 1000, when 
Christianity was introduced into Greenland. Seventeen bishops 
served Greenland in this period, and one of these, Eirik Upse, who 
became bishop of Greenland in I112, went on a missionary journey 
to Vinland as early as 1121.6 Since the religious work of the time 
made much use of force, it had to be abandoned when the Norsemen 
withdrew from Vinland. 

When the work of exploring and settling America was again taken 
up as a result of the discoveries of Columbus, the Norsemen again 
played a role somewhat in proportion to their resources and man 
power. On the whole, conditions in Norway were such that they 
deprived her of her pristine vigor and enterprise ; hence Norway took 
no illustrious part in the very early history of America’s second 
exploration and settlement. What Norway lacked in independent 
action under her foreign masters—for masters they must be called 
—was somewhat counterbalanced by the energy and reckless daring 
of a few individuals. 

One small, but notable, group was the one sent out by King 
Christian IV of Denmark-Norway in two boats under the command 
of Jens Munk. Captain Munk, with sixty-five men, among them 
Rev. Rasmus Jensen and a ship doctor, set out on May 16, 16109, 
to discover the Northwest Passage, which, indeed, later was dis- 
covered by the Norseman, Roald Amundson. They came to Hud- 
son Bay July 1, 1619, and sailed back and forth in this bay until 
September 7, when they went into winter quarters. In his diary, 
now in the library at Copenhagen University, Captain Munk de- 
scribes the terrible hardships of that lonely Northern winter on 
American soil. Pestilence, hunger, cold, and lonesomeness laid all 
but four of them low, and these, by a veritable miracle, succeeded 
in making their way back to civilization. Captain Munk himself 
survived, but Rev. Rasmus Jensen met a most heroic death and be- 
came the first Lutheran pastor to be buried on American soil. 

From September, 1619, to January, 1620, almost a year before 
the Mayflower Pilgrims came, regular Lutheran services were con- 
ducted in the far North. In a most touching manner Captain Munk 
describes this sorely tried congregation and its efforts to keep up 
the church customs of the homeland. It must, indeed, have been 


* See his article in Scandinavia quoted above. 
*Ibid. See also K. Gjerset, op. cit., 111. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 23 


a Christmas never to be forgotten by the few whose memory was 
not cut short by sudden death, for Jens Munk writes: 


The holy Christmas Day we all celebrated and kept as a Christian 
should. We had a sermon and chanting, and after the sermon we 
gave the pastor a Christmas offering according to the good old 
custom, each one according to his means. Even though money was 
not plentiful among us, each gave what he had. In lieu of money 
one man gave a white fox skin, so that the pastor could line his 
coat; but, alas, after that he was not permitted to wear it out.’ 


As a dying man preaching to dying men, Jensen continued his 
work, though the plague had already marked him as one of its vic- 
tims. On January 23, so Munk relates, the plague-ridden pastor sat 
up in his cabin and preached his last sermon to his heartbroken 
parishioners. Exactly a month later he died. Thus passed the 
worthy pioneer Lutheran pastor on American soil; he died, as he 
had lived, sharing the fate of his congregation. Fortunately, this 
congregation had its messenger who has preserved for us an account 
of its glorious, though futile, struggles against odds that were too 
great for it. 

Ten years later, Norwegians took an active, though possibly not 
a leading, part in the settlement of what is now New York. In 
true American fashion these Norwegians fused with other racial 
elements, furnishing the racial background for such prominent fami- 
lies as the Vanderbilts and others. Some of the Norwegians con- 
tributed to the Lutheran religious life that was carried on with great 
difficulty by the Dutch under Peter Stuyvesant’s intolerant gover- 
norship.? Thus there were Norwegians in the congregations of the 
Lutheran pastor, Rev. John Ernest Gutwasser, who came to New 
Amsterdam on June 6, 1657, and was sent away by Stuyvesant, after 
having served in America somewhat over two years. This is shown 
by the following quotation found in Neve’s church history: 


The first Dutch congregation in the new world was truly cosmo- 
politan ; it consisted of a number of Dutch families, but the majority 
of the members were Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and German 
people. The leading man of this congregation was a German, 
Paulus Schrick, of Nuremberg . . . and the man who was suspected 
by the Reformed preachers of Amsterdam as sheltering during the 
whole winter the first Dutch Lutheran minister to the new world, 
John Gutwasser, was a Norwegian, Laurence Noorman.” 


Although the Norwegians shared in the work carried on under 
the leadership of other racial groups, they never became sufficiently 


"The Lutheran World Almanac, 1921, 66. 

®*John O. Evjen, Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630-1674. 
°J. L. Neve, A Brief History of the Lutheran Church in America, 22 ff. 
* Op. cit., 24. Quotation is from Evjen, in Hauch, R. E. XXIV, 539. 


24 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


strong to organize their own religious groups. Nor did they seem 
to care much for the preservation of their own group, as they quite 
readily adopted Dutch names and Dutch customs.* Not until two 
centuries later, that is, in 1821, were preliminary steps to be taken 
toward a group migration that later was to be served by the group's 
own national church. 

There are two versions of the beginnings of Norwegian immi- 
gration to America in the nineteenth century. One version is found 
in one of the very earliest sources of Norwegian American history, 
namely, Ole Rynning’s True Account of America for the Informa- 
tion and Help of Peasant and Commoner. Written by a Norwegian 
who arrived there in the month of June, 1837.17, Another version, 
supplementing this first one, was published by Barthinius L. Wick 
in Lhe Friend in 1894. The latter gives a full background for the 
emigration, whereas Rynning (and with him Rev. J. W. Dietrichson, 
1846, Prof. R. B. Anderson, 1896, and others) simply begins with 
Cleng’s visit to America without giving any clue as to where he got 
the idea that America was worth investigating. Since there is no 
conflict between these versions, we shall make use of them both in 
the hope that our narrative will be enriched thereby. 

We have spoken of the war between Denmark-Norway and 
England. In 1807 every able-bodied Norseman was drafted to fight 
the English and the Swedes. Among those drafted were Elias Ta- 
stad, Enoch Enochsen, Lars Larson, and others from Stavanger. By 
the fortunes of war, these were captured and imprisoned on miser- 
able English prison ships outside of London. The Quakers, always 
the friends of the downtrodden, visited them in prison, distributed 
a Danish translation of Barclay’s Apology among them, and sent 
missionaries to preach for them, with the result that the above-men- 
tioned men were converted to the Quaker faith. One of the Quaker 
preachers was a French nobleman, Stephen Grellet by name, who 
had spent twelve years in America. When peace again was restored 
and the prisoners were liberated in 1814, Lars Larson remained a 
year in London in the employ of the family of William Allen, a 
noted Quaker and philanthropist. After thus making very valuable 
connections among the Quakers, and being firmly established in the 
Quaker faith, Larson returned to his native city, Stavanger, to propa- 
gate his new-found faith among his townsmen.?® 

Stavanger seemed ready for anything at this time, as the city 
was fairly seething with a religious dissent which bordered very 
closely upon an open religious revolt. Just where to lodge the blame 

“Torstein Jahr, “Nordmand in Nieuwnederland,” in Symra (Decorah, 
Iowa), V. 65 ff. See also similar article by same author in Symra, IX, 9 ff. 

“This work, published at Christiania, 1838, has been translated by Theo. 
C. Blegen and published in Minnesota History Bulletin, November, 1917. 

* For a detailed account of these Norwegian Quakers see Henry J. Cad- 
bury, “The Norwegian Quakers of 1825,” in The Harvard Theological Review, 


October, 1925, 293 ff. See also George Richardson, The Rise and Progress 
of the Society of Friends in Norway, London, 1849. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 25 


for this cannot so easily be decided at this distance; it is a safe 
guess, however, that all parties to the open friction were somewhat 
to blame. There was undoubtedly in the city some of the extreme 
fanaticism which was left as dregs from the high-strung Herrnhut- 
ism of a former generation. While these elements preserved only 
the memory of the measures of suppression visited upon their for- 
bears, they were easily fired to extreme action at the least sign of 
interference from the official classes. In a seedbed of this kind, 
Hauge’s message and subsequent fate would stir to life dormant 
forces that neither Hauge nor his successor, John Haugvaldstad, could 
control. Added to this is the mercurial temperament of people in 
this commercial center, where ideas easily strike root, but usually are 
crowded out by new and contrary ideas long before they have time 
to bear proper fruit. Into this surge of ideas Haugeanism entered, 
only to be broken up and transformed into a number of variations 
ranging from staid, conservative Lutheranism to quite extreme 
fanaticism, with no other connection with Haugeanism than resent- 
ment at the treatment given Hauge by the official classes. In their 
turn, the official classes took hold of the matter in such a way that 
the charges of the extremists were justified. The clerical class pos- 
sibly did not fully realize the strength of these dissenting groups; 
or, if they did, they were too bureaucratic to wish to relinquish any 
of their prerogatives without giving battle. Back of the clergy stood 
such harsh and aristocratic officials as, for instance, Captain Dietrich- 
son, father of the Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson. On the one hand, 
then, we have excitable and aggressive anti-official elements; on the 
other, an official element which is willing and ready to assert all the 
prerogatives inherited from centuries of unlimited bureaucratic off- 
cialism. While in a general way it was Haugeanism that was pitted 
against officialism, Haugeanism really became merely a generic term 
covering practically every form of dissent and revolt. Truly, Stav- 
anger might have seemed prepared for anything. 

But Quakerism was a little too advanced for even the Stavan- 
gerings. The extremists, who labored in the name of Hauge and 
Haugvaldstad, did indeed prepare the way for Quakerism, but stopped 
far short of the position taken by the Quakers. The Quaker writer, 
Barthinius L. Wick, connects the Haugean and Quaker movements, 
although he admits that the Quaker doctrine 

sounded very strange to the people and dangerous to the officials. 

. . The Friends [he continues] were much bolder than even these 
men [Hauge and Haugvaldstad]. They discarded water baptism, 
accepted no Lord’s Supper, refused to take an oath, and objected 
to military service imposed by law upon every able-bodied Norseman. 

No wonder that priest and high official raised an outcry against such 

people, declaring them to be dangerous to the country.” 


The Quakers probably were not at first given a great deal of 
attention except in their own narrow circles. At any rate, they were 
“The Friend, 1894, 259 ff. 


26 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


not prevented from organizing a “society” at Stavanger in 1816. 
Wick says (1bid.) : 


There were three classes of persons that joined—first, and I trust, 
the greater part, were those who were convinced and believed in 
the views they accepted; second, those who were not so much in 
favor of all Quaker views, but were against the Lutheran Church, 
and as there was no other, they became Friends. This can be 
substantiated by the fact that, when the Methodists and the Baptists 
began their work in Norway, many of these people went over to 
those denominations. A third class was the poor who hoped for and 
were [sic] helped by the society. There are perhaps many today in 
Norway who were not Friends if it were not for the pecuniary 
assistance derived. . 


The Quakers in Norway were not to escape the inconveniences 
that they met in a much more severe form in other countries at this 
time. It is, however, a moot question just how much persecution 
the Quakers suffered in Norway before 1825. Prof. R. B. Ander- 
son in his excellent book, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, 
makes the emigrants of 1825 a “Mayflower” party which fled from 
religious persecution in Norway.*® On the other hand, Prof. O. N. 
Nelson maintains that 


there is no authentic record to show that a single man, woman, or 
child of the fifty-two persons who emigrated in 1825, ever came in 
conflict with the laws of Norway on account of their religion. The 
only Quaker in the Stavanger district who suffered for his belief, 
prior to 1826, was Elias Tastad, and he did not emigrate. The main 
hardships of the Norwegian Friends befell them from 1830 to 1845. 
At the latter date religious freedom was virtually established in the 
kingdom.” 


While the Stavangerings were scandalized in 1816 when Knud 
Halvorsen took Anna Olsdatter in marriage according to the Quaker 
custom of merely grasping each other’s hands,” there is no indica- 
tion that the bridal couple suffered any persecution. Nor is there 
any indication that the government interfered when the Quakers 
established their “society” at Stavanger in 1816. On the contrary, 
when Elias Tastad, the Quaker leader in Stavanger, requested in 
1823 that eleven Quakers be granted free exercise of their religion, 
N. Krogh forwarded the request to the Department of Church and 
Education with the remark that, though difficulties might arise in 
case many should ask exemption from military service, he saw no 
reason for denying this request inasmuch as the petitioners were 


* R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, 45-131. 
*O. N. Nelson, History of the Scandinavians and Successful Scandi- 


navians in the United States (1901), I, 133. ; 
* Gunnar Malmin, “Norsk Landnam i U. S.,” III, in Decorah Posten, 


November 28, 1924. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 27 


“industrious and diligent’? in their vocations.1® Indeed, a govern- 
ment commission of 1844 deplores that any intolerance had been 
shown twenty years earlier—if such were the case. It reads: 


In the meantime, it seems worthy of our best attention, that the 
first emigration twenty years ago . . . should have been brought 
about by any show of intolerance over against the Quakers. In that 
case, it seems highly deplorable that the principles of universal 
religious freedom for all Christian sects of religion were not more 
plainly enunciated in paragraph two of our Constitution, or later 
established through legislation.” 


From this it appears that, if the local officers of the law and 
the pastors resorted to harsh measures, it was not with the sanction 
of the government. 

But there is a persecution that is worse than that of clergy and 
government officials, namely, the persecution of public opinion. In 
spite of the prevalent religious dissension, Norway—and also Stav- 
anger—was solidly Lutheran. The Quakers were regarded as quite 
unnecessary, as breakers of the laws of good order and propriety, 
and as a peculiar lot—which latter they tried to be in accordance 
with their conception of the biblical assertion that they should be 
a “peculiar” people. This public antipathy is best reflected in the 
slow progress Quakerism made in spite of the relatively favorable 
conditions for Quaker work at Stavanger. 

In 1818 Stephen Grellet and William Allen came to Stavanger to 
aid the work by organizing meetings, by having Quaker literature 
translated and by refuting false charges. Grellet also wrote the 
French king requesting that he use his influence with his (the king’s) 
relative, the ruler of Sweden and Norway, to insure lenient treat- 
ment for the Quakers in Norway. Seeing the extreme poverty of 
the Quaker converts, Grellet advised the Norwegians to emigrate. 
Wick says: “Grellet seeing, also, the extreme poverty of the people, 
and knowing so well about America from his extensive travels in 
that country, told them that America offered many advantages, a 
better future as to prosperity, free exercise of religion and no mili- 
tary duties imposed. It was then that Grellet first broached the idea 
of America to the Norse peasants.” This suggestion seems almost 
absurd when we consider the condition of those to whom it 
was made. On the other hand, even impoverished Viking blood 
tingles at fantastic schemes of this kind, and probably only the fact 
that they intended to take women and children along prompted these 
intrepid spirits to take the precaution to send two men, Cleng Peer- 
son *° and Knud Olson Eide, to investigate whether or not it would 


* Malmin, op. cit., II, in Decorah Posten, November 21, 1924. 

“ Tbid., January 2, 1924. 

”For spelling Cleng instead of Kleng Peerson see Theo. C. Blegen, “Cleng 
Peerson and Norwegian Immigration” in The Mississippi Valley Historical 
Review, March, 1921, 305, note II. 


28 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


be worth while going to that country. Thus was called upon the 
scene a man who was to play a strange role in American coloniza- 
tion—Cleng Peerson. His companion, Eide, must have died in New 
York; hence to Cleng Peerson alone goes the honor of being the 
pioneer in the great Norwegian migration to America in the nine- 
teenth century. 

Born on the farm Hesthammer in Stavanger Amt, or district, 
Norway, May 17, 1782, Cleng quite early came into contact with the 
dissenter groups in and around Stavanger.*t He claimed intimate 
acquaintanceship with the Quaker leader, Elias Tastad, and it was 
his connection with the Quakers that prompted him to devote his 
energies to the task of colonization on a very large scale. For this 
he was particularly well fitted. Gifted with an easy flow of speech 
in which fact and fable were woven into an irresistible chain of per- 
suasion—not argument—he stirred whole neighborhoods to a frenzy 
for emigration. Once these people had entrusted their lives and 
limbs to his care, he showed remarkable ability and scrupulous hon- 
esty in managing their affairs. At times this called for great per- 
sonal sacrifice; but since he was practically devoid of even legiti- 
mate self-interest in managing his own affairs, he sacrificed when 
he should rightly have reserved something for himself. Thus he 
owned and disposed of very large tracts of land without receiving 
anything at all in return for his holdings except the good will of 
those he helped. Getting a deed to the lands involved walking sev- 
eral hundred miles, and at the end of the journey he had to display 
some very keen business acumen. This service Peerson performed 
gratuitously for thousands of settlers. In search of new lands for 
his countrymen, Peerson walked the entire distance from Kendall, 
New York, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1833. Near here under 
an oak tree in La Salle County, Illinois, the weary Cleng fell asleep, 
it is said, and dreamt: 


and in his dream he saw the wild prairie changed into a cultivated 
region, teeming with all kinds of grain and fruit most beautiful to 
behold; that splendid houses and barns stood all over the land, occu- 
pied by, a rich, prosperous, and happy people. Alongside the fields 
of waving grain large herds of cattle were feeding. Cleng inter- 
preted this as a vision and as a token from Almighty God that his 
countrymen should come there and settle.” 


So they did. Not only that, but they settled in various other 
midwestern states whither Cleng led them. He even went to Texas 
and led a colony down there. In this latter state he chose to live his 
last years. At his death on December 16, 1865, he was buried in 


* Biographies of Cleng Peerson are: Blegen, op. cit.; virtual reprint of 
same in North Star, May-June, 1921, 196; R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of 
Norwegian Immigration, 54 ff., 179 ff.; R. B. Anderson, Cleng Peerson og 
Sluppen Restaurationen (Chicago, 1925). 

=k. B. Anderson, op. ctt., 172. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 29 


the Lutheran cemetery at Norse, Texas. Thus ended a life given 
wholly and unstintedly to the cause of Norwegian immigration to 
America. 

Cleng Peerson (Hesthammer) was not consciously undertaking 
to transfer Norwegian Lutheranism to America. Far from it. In 
as far as he was anything else than a pronounced freethinker, he was 
possibly a Quaker, but certainly not a Lutheran.** And yet this 
man must be regarded as the pioneer of the Norwegian immigra- 
tion to America in the nineteenth century, and as such has had an 
important share in transplanting the Norwegian Lutheran Church 
to American soil. 

As already stated, Cleng Peerson and Knud Olson Eide were sent 
to America by the Stavanger Quakers to verify Grellet’s state- 
ments.24 These men wrote home, but it was not until after Peer- 
son’s return to Norway in 1824 that definite steps to emigrate were 
taken. Six heads of families in 1825 bought an old sloop of forty- 
five tons called Restaurationen (The Restoration) and loaded it with 
iron and brandy. With this cargo and fifty-two persons on board, 
the little sloop set sail on July 4, 1825, under command of Lars 
Olson Helland 7° as captain of the ship, and with Lars Larson (i Jei- 
lane) as leader of the party. 

They sailed into the English Channel and stopped in the harbor 
of Lisett, where they began to sell liquor in violation of the English 
laws and had to abandon their provisioning and get away as fast 
as possible to avoid arrest. Due to poor seamanship and adverse 
winds, they went far out of their course, but after considerable 
cruising found their way into the harbor of Funchal, Madeira 
Islands. Here they saw a cask of wine floating in the harbor, and 
Lars Larson, their leader, for the moment forgot his Quaker tenets 
and joyfully hoisted the cask on board. They were so engrossed in 
(or otherwise affected by) these new-found spirits that they did not 
hoist flag. Thinking it was a deserted pest ship that had drifted into 
the harbor, the officials at the fort were already having the guns 
trained on them when an officer from a nearby ship cried out to 
them to fly their colors. After a dizzy search they found a flag 
and were thus saved. 

At Funchal they were treated with sympathy and courtesy. They 
left there July 31 and arrived in New York on October 10, the trip 
from Norway consuming fourteen weeks. In the course of this 
long voyage the leader’s wife, Mrs. Larson, had given birth to a 
daughter, making the number of persons on board fifty-three when 
they arrived in New York. Since it was in violation of American 
law to carry such a large cargo on such a small boat, the captain 

ovibtds, 102, 

* From now on the various accounts agree in essentials. We shall there- 
fore follow R. B. Anderson’s account in First Chapter of Norwegian Immi- 


gration. } 
75 Malmin, “Norsk Landnam i U. S.,” II, in Decorah Posten, November 21, 


1924. 


30 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


was arrested and detained for a short time. Cleng Peerson, who had 
come to America in another boat, succeeded in getting influential 
Quakers to intercede for the luckless captain, with the result that 
he was released without paying any fine. 

Their successful, though rash, enterprise aroused a great deal of 
interest in New York.2® The New York Daily Advertiser for 
Wednesday, October 12, 1825, carried an editorial describing these 
modern Vikings and their frail craft as “A Novel Sight.” Well 
might these rash sailors attract attention; for even during the World 
War the crossing of the Atlantic by the expertly sailed, motor- 
driven, forty-five-ton subchasers was regarded as an epoch in navi- 
gation; how much more, then, should not the passage of this lone, 
frail, overloaded, and badly Sailed sloop of 1825! 

After having disposed of the boat and its cargo, the sloopers, 
as they are called, were led by Cleng Peerson to Kendall, now in 
Orleans County, New York. Whatever color had brightened their 
view of American prospects, it paled before the grim realities con- 
fronting them as strangers in a strange land. They were homesick 
and ill in body and in mind; their location was badly chosen; and 
they soon found that, though some of them were familiar with the 
language, financial advancement in America was extremely slow 
for the immigrant who was unfamiliar with American conditions. As 
a result of the general discontent, the settlers sent such discourag- 
ing reports back to Norway that others did not follow immediately 
in their wake. We shall, therefore, have ample opportunity to pause 
and examine this group a little more closely in regard to their pos- 
sible contribution to the transplanting of the Norwegian Lutheran 
Church to America. Their isolated position in history also demands 
this of us. 

We should reasonably expect the sloopers to be hostile to the 
Lutherans; for if it be true that they had suffered for their faith 
in Norway and, Pilgrim-like, were escaping from persecution, we 
should certainly expect these staunch and tried Quakers to continue 
in their zeal also in America. That the motives for emigration 
were mixed an examination of their religious history will show. 
Prof. Anderson, who has given the matter much enthusiastic study, | 
says of their religious condition: 


Many of those who came in the sloop and some of those who came 
later were Quakers. Instead of organizing themselves separately 
they naturally attached themselves to American Quaker societies 
and worshiped with them. This I know was the case with Lars 
Larson (i Jeilane) in Rochester, with Ingebret Larson Narvig in 
Michigan, and with the Rossadals and Olsons in the Fox River 
settlement. Some of the early Norwegian immigrants had no pro- 
found religious convictions and might properly be called agnostics. 
I have myself known a considerable number both of the sloopers 
and of those who came in 1836 and in 1837, who were not only 

7” R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 70 ff. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 31 


destitute of religious convictions, but who seemed utterly to despise, 
and were fond of ridiculing, ministers, churches, the Bible and 
religious people. . . . It seems that some of these agnostics had 
acquired their hostility to the Church and to religion before they 
emigrated from Norway. They merely became louder and more 
outspoken in their ridicule and denunciations after they got their 
feet on the free soil of America. As in the days of rationalism, so 
now those who were religiously inclined held devotional exercises 
at home.” 


We have above sufficiently explained why the immigrants brought 
this antipathy with them to America.”® 

With Larson, Narvig, Rossadals, and Olsons accounted for, we 
still have some others. One of the sloopers, a Haugean, Ole Olson 
(Hetletvedt), who was later to play a part in the religious history 
of Illinois,?® preached in the Kendall settlement for a while. From 
that one might conclude that he was not the only devout Haugean in 
the party. He was later aided by Bjorn Hatlestad, who came to Ken- 
dall in 1836. These men preached in the settlement and otherwise 
attempted to minister to the spiritual needs of the people. Though 
these were Haugeans, it seems that only the best of feeling existed 
between them and the Quakers. Since very little was done to keep 
the group together in matters of religion, it was soon badly split up 
into numerous religious parties. One of the sloopers, Mr. H. Har- 
wick, wrote in 1871: “So far as religion is concerned we have 
many churches and many ministers and various denominations, and 
some go to church, while others stay at home.” *° It took them 
some time to get used to these various churches, he says, but little 
by little they were reconciled to them, and it made very little differ- 
ence so long as they were built on the same foundation, Jesus Christ. 

This was rather broad denominationalism, but it was none too 
narrowly defined if it should include the church affiliations in the 
Kendall settlement. Harwick’s sister, Caroline, married another 
slooper, Gudmund Haugaas, who became a high-priest of the or- 
der of Melchizedek in the church of the Latter Day Saints in La 
Salle County, Illinois. The slooper, Sarah Nelson Hersdal, mar- 
ried Canute Peterson Marsett, who became bishop at Ephraim, 
Utah, and one of the seventy desciples of the Mormon sect. Of 
the other sloopers there does not seem to be any religious record, 
unless one should include Cleng Peerson in the party on the grounds 
that he was very closely connected with them, though he did not cross 
the ocean in the sloop. Peerson’s religious views are described by 
Ole Canuteson of Waco, Texas, who knew him from 1850 until 
his death in 1865: 


He [Peerson] was the most pronounced freethinker I have ever 
known. I remember his having an old Danish freethinking book 
* Tbid., 3096. * See Chapter I. *® See below, 38. 
®In the newspaper, Fadrelandet og Emigranten (La Crosse, Wis.), Feb- 
ruary 9, 1871. Quoted by R. B. Anderson, op. cit. 


32 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


translated from the German. He believed little or nothing of the 
Bible, especially the supernatural part thereof. Whether he at any 
time had belonged to the Quakers I cannot say positively, but time 
and again I heard him talk about them as models in religious and 
temporal matters, and I heard him talk about getting assistance, aid 
and comfort from Elias Tastad of Stavanger, Norway, he being 
their leader in that city.” 


About all we can say for the sloopers in the Kendall settle- 
ment, then, is that they, with the exception of Ole Olson (Hetle- 
tvedt), made no direct and positive contribution to Lutheran church 
life as such. But their indirect contribution was great. Lars Lar- 
son, the staunch and lovable Quaker leader of the sloop party, built 
a large house in Rochester and his home was the exemplification of 
the “friendly” spirit that he professed. Hundreds of subsequent 
immigrants stopped at his home and he helped them in every pos- 
sible way, and then sent them to the middle-western settlements. By 
directing the immigration to a few compact settlements, he made 
possible the beginnings of organized church work in later times. 
When Larson lost his life, falling from a canal boat while on his 
way to New York, November 13, 1845,°? Norwegian American 
Lutheranism lost one of its very great benefactors. 

When the main stream of Norwegian immigration came, it went 
to the Middle West; hence the Kendall settlement, which withal 
dwindled in size, lost its importance as a Norwegian center and be- 
came chiefly a stopping-place for these westward-bound settlers. We 
can, therefore, dismiss the sloopers with two different characteriza- 
tions. After they had been in America seventy-five years, Prof. 
O. N. Nelson writes of them: “Considered as a unit, the immi- 
grants of 1825 have practically exercised no influence; as individuals, 
they and their offspring have, no doubt, been peaceful citizens and 
desirable subjects; but apparently hardly any of them have pos- 
sessed those marked characteristics of push and energy so common 
to the Norwegians in the nineteenth century.” ** Quite different is Dr. 
O. M. Norlie’s estimate of them at the centennial of their immi- 
gration. He says of the five hundred that he has traced: 


They are all at work and are found in every representative occupa- 
tion. About two-thirds of them are on the farm. They are literate, 
most of them trained exclusively in the public schools. A number of 
them have college and professional degrees. . . . Nearly one-half of 
them are known to belong to some Christian church—15% Lutheran, 
1% Catholic, 12% Methodist, 6% Congregationalist, 5% Baptist, 
2% Adventist, 1% Episcopalian, 1% Campbellite, 2% Quaker.” 


They are evidently average Norwegian Americans—neither bet- 
ter nor worse. 
™R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 192. *4 Tbid., 65 ff. 


*O. N. Nelson, History of the Scandinavians in the U. S., 134, litera o. 
*O. M. Norlie, History of the Norwegian People in America, 127. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 33 


We shall merely mention in passing an incident that had a deci- 
sive effect on the Kendall settlement’s future. Cleng Peerson, the 
restless prospector, and Ingebret Larson Narvig, a Quaker, who 
had come from Stavanger via Boston to Kendall in 1831, set out on 
foot in 1833 to explore the West. Narvig stopped in Michigan, but 
the persistent Cleng walked on to Chicago, then a mere village, up 
to Milwaukee, an outpost of three houses, and then back again to 
Illinois. In La Salle County he is supposed to have had his dream 
of the wild prairies changed into one of a cultivated region, with 
fields of grain and orchards bearing fruits, with houses and barns 
and cattle and a rich, prosperous, and happy people. Whether awake 
or asleep, it indeed required imagination in those days to visualize 
this on the wild prairies of Illinois. 

At any rate, the prospect was one to conjure with, especially 
when presented by such a master as Cleng Peerson. At his return 
to Kendall, New York, he immediately began to paint in rosy colors 
the lands to the west, with the result that in 1834 and 1835 many of 
the Kendall settlers moved to Illinois and founded the second Nor- 
wegian settlement in America at Mission, La Salle County, Illinois. 
This so-called Fox River settlement soon became the real center of 
Norwegian immigration to America, though it, in turn, soon had to 
yield to other settlements in point of importance. There was now 
an immigrant station in the West as well as in the East. This, of 
course, made for concentration of the Norwegian immigration in cer- 
tain sections, making separate church work among the immigrants 
possible. Another result is that the reports sent back to Norway 
now took on a very different color, the pessimistic reports of the Ken- 
dallites being quite overshadowed by the reports from the West- 
erners. 

From 1825 to 1836 very few immigrants came over, possibly be- 
cause the Kendall settlers had gotten such an unfavorable impres- 
sion of America. Some few came, however, going by way of Goth- 
enborg (Sweden), Hamburg, and Havre. Thus in 1829 Gundmund 
Sandsberg, a staunch Lutheran, came over, and his letters created 
some interest among his relatives in Norway, where the times were 
exceedingly hard. Gjert Gregoriussen Hovland came to America in 
1831 and, being fortunate enough to clear five hundred dollars in four 
years on a land deal, he wrote a glowing account back to Norway 
about the conditions here, describing the liberal American laws, the 
equality and liberty they guarantee, and contrasting these great boons 
with the extortions of the official aristocracy in Norway. There was 
no law of God, he said, to prevent people from settling in whatever 
part of the world they wished; so if the Norwegians were at all able, 
they should come to America. 

When we remember what had been brewing in the minds of the 
Norwegian bonder, particularly from 1833 to 1836, we can easily 
understand the tremendous effect these letters of 1835 had. They 
were transcribed a thousand times and were discussed wherever men 


34 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


met. In 1835 the slooper, Knud Anderson Slogvig, returned to Nor- 
way, and it is said that he could not have aroused more interest if he 
had come from the moon. Here was a man from the Western 
Goshen, and men traveled over a hundred miles to see this marvelous 
person and to hear his wonderful story. The “America fever” be- 
came irrepressible, and the stories about being sold to the Turks as 
slaves, about the fearful diseases of the new land, and the solemn 
remonstrance by the clergy were all in vain.*® 

Two ships, Norden (The North) and Den norske klippe (The 
Norwegian Rock) were, accordingly, fitted out in Stavanger, and 
two hundred emigrants set sail in 1836 for the Fox River settlement 
in La Salle county, Illinois. In 1837 two more ships, 4gw and 
Enigheden (The Unity), set sail from Bergen and Stavanger, respec- 
tively, with another two hundred passengers bound for the same 
place. The leader of the party of 1836 was Bjorn Anderson; the 
leader of the party of 1837 was Student Ole Rynning, about whom 
we shall hear more presently. At present we might only remark that 
he and the party of 1837 were dissuaded from going to Fox River, 
though some of this party later found their way thither. Others from 
Stavanger and elsewhere soon came over. Most notable of: these 
early arrivals is Elling Eielsen (Sunve), who arrived in Fox River 
in 18309. 

As we have taken pains to indicate, the early Fox River settle- 
ment was composed almost altogether of Stavangerings. The early 
settlers at Fox River who came from Kendall, New York, were, of 
course, from Stavanger; the two ships that came over in 1836 were 
from Stavanger; so was Enigheden which came over in 1837. The 
early Fox River settlement, therefore, was really a second Stavan- 
ger, and its religious temper reflected an extreme type of religious 
revolt, unstable Haugeans, and a more moderate Haugeanism. The 
former elements were here free to take their own natural courses, 
the one turning its back upon religion entirely, the other joining any 
sect whatever so long as 1t was not Lutheran. Fortunately, the third 
element retained its Lutheran connections, though it, too, was of a 
somewhat nonconformist type. 

That the religious conditions were far from ideal at Fox River 
is freely admitted by such an authority as Prof. R. B. Anderson, who 
is himself a Stavangering, being the son of Bjorn Anderson, the 
leader of the party of 1836. There should be no question, therefore, 
in regard to his fairness in this matter. Here are the conditions as 
he found them: 


Some of the early Norwegian immigrants had no profound 
religious convictions, and might properly be called agnostics. I 
have myself known a considerable number both of the sloopers and 
of those who came in 1836 and in 1837, who were not only destitute 
of religious convictions, but who seemed utterly to despise and were 


* Billed-Magazin, Svein Nilsson (ed.), I, 154 ff. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 35 


fond of ridiculing ministers, churches, the Bible and religious 
people. . . . It seems that some of these agnostics had acquired 
their hostility to the church and to religion before they emigrated 
from Norway. They merely became louder and more outspoken in 
their ridicule and denunciations after they got their feet on the 
free soil of America.” 


This statement, which has already been quoted above in passing, 
bears repetition, as it vividly portrays a certain condition that was 
not restricted to the Stavangerings alone, but which, in their case, 
is somewhat characteristic. Just why a certain number should be 
agnostic need not worry us at this time. That undesirable elements 
attached themselves to the Haugeans and Quakers is easily under- 
stood. In the bitter struggle for power in Norway ** the Haugeans 
(and, in Stavanger, also the Quakers), under the astute leadership 
of the Stavanger bonde, Ole Gabriel Ueland, championed the cause 
of the lower classes against the clergy and the office-holding classes. 
In this struggle for social and political power every shade of opposi- 
tion to the clergy and the church enlisted under the banner of the 
highly religious and thoroughly confessional Haugeans. How long 
this negative ideal could hold these elements together in America 
where there were neither State Church pastors nor a State Church 
is, of course, another matter. In the absence of the common foe 
every man’s hand was against every other man, with the result that 
Quakerism as well as Haugeanism lost all control over this element. 
This group consequently broke up into a number of fragments, de- 
stroying altogether every prospect for concerted action along Nor- 
wegian national lines. Worse still, these elements now went their 
way into agnosticism, denouncing everything that pertained to re- 
ligion as they went. They had perhaps never really belonged to the 
State Church except in a very nominal way; they had embraced Hau- 
geanism or Quakerism only in a very negative way; now they were 
lost to all religion. As they went out into the night of agnosticism, 
they sowed the tares of hatred and suspicion. And these were diffi- 
cult weeds to eradicate at Fox River, this group representing apos- 
tasy in its extremest form. 

Besides these agnostics there was a second class, namely, a group 
of unstable Haugeans. Possibly the great majority of the settlers 
were church people, some of whom had actually suffered in some 
way for their faith. These came to America either as Quakers or 
Haugean Lutherans, since these were the only possible alignments 
for this group in Norway at that time. But if they had had no choice 
in Norway, they were given ample opportunity to choose at Fox 
River, where the sects made great inroads among the unorganized 
immigrants. Prof. Anderson also describes this side of the religi- 
ous life of the community. “In the Fox River settlement all was 
chaos and confusion during the early days of the colony. Some of 


*R. B, Anderson, op. cit., 396. ** See above, Chapter I. 


36 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


the Norwegians there were Quakers, others Baptists, others Pres- 
byterians, others Methodists, others Lutherans, others Mormons, and 
some were freethinkers, all in inextricable disorder.” ** 

Measured by the test of Lutheran loyalty, which is the test we 
must apply to other immigrated Norwegians, these Fox River set- 
tlers make a bad showing indeed. Even if we recognize the dissent 
at Stavanger and include also Quaker loyalty as a test, the results 
are equally unsatisfactory. These people came to America either as 
Lutherans or as Quakers; if Quakers, they had been persecuted by 
public opinion—by this time also by governmental interference— 
hence must be regarded as martyrs. But there was nothing of the 
steadfast devotion of the martyr manifested in the widespread de- 
fection of the early Fox River settlers to all sorts of sects. One rea- 
son for their speedy defection is, of course, the loose adherence of 
some of the dissenters to Haugeanism or Quakerism. Hatred of the 
State Church and its clergy, the bond of union in Norway, was not 
sufficient to bind them either to Haugeanism or Quakerism in Amer- 
ica, where they were not confronted by either of these institutions. 
Then there was the inherent weakness of Haugeanism, as the 
dissenters understood this movement; Haugeanism to them was a 
movement which legitimately sought to depose the State Church 
clergy as religious leaders. ‘The dissenters had been as thoroughly 
indoctrinated as the other early immigrants, and, judged as lay 
members of the established church, were quite capable and intelli- 
gent. But when they made a bid to assume the spiritual leadership 
of the church, they at once felt the disparity which existed between 
themselves and the State-Church clergy, especially in the popular 
mind. In attempting to do away with this disparity, they indiscrim- 
inately attacked the clergy and their admittedly Lutheran views, 
thereby undermining the very foundations of Lutheran unity, as 
“pure doctrine’ is the only universal bond of union in the Lutheran 
Church. With the bond of union practically destroyed, this dissent- 
ing element indiscriminately followed almost every will-o’-the-wisp 
se long as it could show some glimmer of “piety” and “spiritual 
lite: 

As already stated, the Fox River settlers started out as either 
Haugean Lutherans or as Quakers. With the lay preachers in the 
lead, the Fox Riverites immediately began to order their religious 
affairs either because they thought that an emergency existed, or 
because they felt that in this free land they could put into effect ex- 
actly what some of their more extreme fellow-Haugeans in Norway 
were struggling for, namely, have laymen perform practically every 
pastoral function. At any rate, they elected Jorgen Pederson as their 
religious leader, expecting, possibly, that he should seek regular 
ordination. But Jorgen Pederson discovered that the Latter Day 
Saints also were pious people, consequently he joined them. The 
Haugeans lost another sturdy lay leader when Ole Heier went the 

*R. B. Anderson, op. ctt., 308. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 37 


way of Jorgen Pederson, becoming first an elder, then a bishop, in 
the Mormon sect. MHeier refused to go to Utah, so joined another 
group of pious folk, the Close Communion Baptists, probably not 
realizing that there was any difference between these and the Mor- 
mons. Hans Balder, another Haugean layman, joined the Baptists, 
who ordained him and used him as a proselyter. At Koshkonong in 
1841 appeared John Smith, a Swede, who claimed to be a Lutheran, 
a minister of the Gospel, and a medical doctor. He turned out to be 
a Baptist and, though he was sent to proselyte and thus was a min- 
ister in a way, he certainly was not a Lutheran and very little of a 
doctor. He soon left for Chicago. A layman, Ole Hansen, also 
called Ole “Konsulen,’” joined the Methodists and preached to his 
countrymen. His headquarters were at Rock Prairie and Highland, 
Wisconsin. 

These, then, were some of the leaders of the unstable Haugeans 
at Fox River. We wonder, on the one hand, at their speedy defec- 
tion from the Lutheran Church, and, on the other, at their extreme 
zeal in embracing what they so imperfectly understood. So long as 
there was “life,” spiritual life, they seemed satisfied and apparently 
asked no further questions. The proselyting sects naturally were 
glad to enlist these converts to their ranks, since none of their more 
seasoned men understood the Norwegian language. Whatever else 
these Norwegian sectarians preached, they certainly lost no occasion 
to inflame the minds of the malcontents against the “State Church 
pastors,’ whose arrival in America they possibly were anticipating. 
How this fell on fertile soil cannot be stressed too much. In their 
defense it must be observed that possibly they felt that the proper 
thing to do in America was to line up with the “Americans” in church 
work as well as in every other way. 

Somewhat apart stands the Swede, G. Unonius, in his efforts to 
attract the Norwegians into the Episcopalian fold, whither he him- 
self had gone. While he was still an unordained theological student 
in an Episcopalian Seminary, he was as zealous as any convert could 
be on the question of “orders.” His field was so large that he could 
not devote much attention to the Fox River settlement, but his attack 
on the self-constituted preachers who very frequently came through 
the settlement may have had its sobering effect. There were un- 
doubtedly many pious, churchly people who were disgusted with 
the ignorant rantings of some of these lay clerics, and welcomed an 
orderly church service. Strategic as Unonius’s position might seem, 
it had the great weakness that the greatest appeal he could make was 
to the churchliness they were accustomed to from Norway. But by 
so doing, he was paving the way for the Norwegian clergy. In this 
weird and motley collection of lay preachers, this student of theol- 
ogy stands out as a purposeful youth who served the church he had 
no thought of serving. 

In reviewing the religious conditions at Fox River as thus far 
presented, we find that the agnostics, Quakers, and certain Hau- 


38 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


geans went to extremes. We have also tried to show why it was 
natural for them to go to extremes: the restraints under which they 
had lived in Norway were suddenly removed and they were free to 
try out their most radical ideas in regard to the sufficiency of the 
lay preachers. While it is not our business to accuse or excuse, we 
realize that, feeling the way they did, these elements could not have 
acted much differently. That this course of action, if persisted in, 
would have entirely disrupted Norwegian Lutheranism is another 
matter. Nor should we forget to call the bureaucratic Norwegian 
clergy and autocratic office-holding class to account for their great 
share in bringing about by undue repression a situation like the one 
described at Fox River. After. this period of extreme reaction, the 
saner elements at Fox River were able to take hold and bring the 
religious forces back into a more balanced frame of mind. 

During all this time Lutheranism had had some adherents at Fox 
River who were made of sterner stuff than the unstable Haugeans 
mentioned above; and it is gratifying to note that these, also, were 
for the most part Haugeans. We shall first take up what might be 
designated as the Fox River group of lay preachers, not because 
their activities were limited to Fox River, but because they repre- 
sent in a stronger or milder form a view of the clergy which was 
most pronounced at Fox River. Over against these we shall place 
a group of lay preachers which, for the same reason, we shall call 
the Muskego group. The latter will be discussed later. 

In this third major group, the more moderate Haugeans, were a 
few who did not break altogether with the church, though they re- 
fused to line up definitely with it. Perhaps Bjorn Anderson, the 
leader of the party of 1836, is a typical example of the more con- 
servative members of this class. His son, Prof. Rasmus B. Ander- 
son, says that Bjorn Anderson had married outside of his class and, 
on account of the sharp class distinctions, found it expedient to emi- 
grate to America. Besides recounting his admirable qualities, Prof. 
Anderson describes his father as being a “born agitator and de- 
bater’; as being given to “sarcastic criticisms of Norwegian laws 
and of the office-holding class’; and that “‘while he did not formally 
join the Quaker society he was in close sympathy with the Friends, 
and he always said that if he ever joined a church, it would be that of 
the Quakers.” *® While Bjorn Anderson remained at the Fox River 
settlement only four years, he undoubtedly entered heart and soul 
into its independent ways. There was certainly to be no domination 
either by the church or its pastors at Fox River; that much was 
settled with or without Bjorn Anderson’s aid, as the case might be. 
For Bjorn Anderson it must be said that he later sent his sons to 
Luther College and his daughter married a Lutheran pastor. 

Then there is the small but staunch group of moderate Haugeans 
who nobly held the ground for Lutheranism until relieved by Elling 
Kielsen. Ole Olson (Hetletvedt) was, as far as is known, the first 

°R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 155. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 39 


to conduct Lutheran religious services among the Norwegians in 
America in the nineteenth century.*° Born in Stavanger Amt, or 
district, of farmer folk, he came in the sloop and settled at Kendall. 
It is supposed that he conducted religious services in the Kendall 
settlement. He moved first to Niagara Falls, where he worked in a 
paper mill, and then to the Fox River settlement. ‘There is no doubt 
that he was the first to gather the people there to hear the Word of 
God according to Haugean custom.*? He was a mild-tempered, ear- 
nest Christian, who traveled extensively in all the Norwegian settle- 
ments in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Jowa, and preached, carried on 
personal work, and acted as agent for an American Bible society. 
He had been a parochial school teacher in Norway; hence he must 
have had some education. His son, Col. Porter C. Olson, met a very 
heroic death at Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864, while fight- 
ing for his country.*? Ole Olson Hetletvedt “‘is said to have been 
the only one of that company [the sloopers] who remained true to 
the Lutheran faith.” *° 

Another early lay preacher is Bjorn Hatlestad, who came to 
America in 1836. After a short stay in New York he moved to Illi- 
nois. While he was not a great preacher, he was sincere, and in his 
quiet way he was of some help to many of the early settlers. The 
layman, Peder Asbjornson (Mehus), was, on the other hand, a zeal- 
ous preacher and colporteur who was untiring in his labors. He was 
later ordained and became a pastor in the Scandinavian Augustana 
Synod (organized 1860) and in the Conference (organized in 1870). 
Other lay preachers of this period are Ole and Herman Osmund- 
son Aaragerbo, Kleng Skaar, Aslag Aae, and John Brakestad. 
These men must be honored as those who kept the flickering flame of 
Lutheranism from being blown out by the many winds of doctrine 
in the early days at Fox River. But none of these was able to rout 
the sectarians and bring the settlers back into the Lutheran fold. 
This great task was reserved for Elling Eielsen, who appeared on 
the scene in 1839. 

Elling Eielsen (Sunve) was born in Vos, near Bergen, Norway, 
September 19, 1804.44 His father was a school teacher and had 


* Ibid., 408 ff. See above for his work at Kendall, New York. 

ei Uig., Tia tt, 

“O. J. Hatlestad, Historiske Meddelelser om den Norske Augustana 
Synode (Decorah, Iowa, 1887), 24. 

“K. O. Eittreim, “Hauge’s Synod” in A. E. Strand, A History of the 
Norwegians in Illinois, 140. 

“The most sympathetic biographies of this man are Chr. Brohaugh and 
I. Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed (Chicago, 1883), and E. O. 
Morstad, Elling Etelsen og den “Evangelisk-lutherske Kirke’ «1 Amerika, 
(Minneapolis, 1917). Th. Bothne gives an interesting biography of him in his 
Kort Udsigt over det Lutherske Kirkearbeide blandt Nordmdndene 1 Amerika, 
appended to Takla’s edition of Heggtveit, Jllustreret Kirkehistoire, 833. He 
has been variously estimated by such writers as J. A. Bergh in Den norsk 
lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika (Minneapolis, 1914), and H. Halvorson 
in Synodens Festskrift (Decorah, Iowa, 1903). 


40 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


leanings toward Haugeanism. Elling was of a melancholy tempera- 
ment and he says of himself that in his youth he had gone to certain 
excesses. Being recalled from his evil ways by the chance remark 
of a friend, he went through a period of spiritual depression in which 
he actually thought of committing suicide. He was saved from this 
fate by moving to Bergen in 1829, where he lived at the home of a 
certain Odland, a Haugean. By contact with this family and by a 
renewed study of Pontoppidan’s large Explanation of Luther’s 
Catechism, he gained peace in his soul. This intense and prolonged 
spiritual struggle was reflected in his preaching which was somewhat 
legalistic. This drab tone was possibly also due to a reaction against 
his whole former life and the conditions that seemed to have brought 
on his fall into sin. 

He always felt that the pastors had not done their full duty by 
him in his plight. Life in the country districts was wild and uncul- 
tured. The quiet and sober everyday life of the bonder stood in 
glaring contrast to the excesses connected with their “social good 
times’ at weddings, at the celebration of childbirth, and at funerals, 
when there was much drinking, many fist fights, and a general hilari- 
ousness. In the cities, conditions were as bad, if not worse. In 
Eielsen’s youth it was true that 


the State Church pastors preached their sermons, instructed the 
confirmants, and administered the sacraments, but they did not go 
down to the people and try by direct intervention to raise them in 
moral and cultural respects. The other officials did still less, 
although they, too, were to be the servants of the people. The 
ministers were beyond comparison the best of the king’s officials, 
but they were not of the people and they did not live with the people 
and for the people. They kept themselves far removed just as the 
ancient German counts in their fortified castles had done, and their 
words from the pulpit too often were above the heads of the con- 
gregation.” 


Being a man who made no distinctions, Eielsen was thoroughly 
incensed at the negligence of the clergy; hence he railed at the “long- 
frocked” clergy until the habit became a mania with him. No mat- 
ter where he spoke and what the local conditions were, he would 
quite invariably accuse the people of living “i dans og drik og sus og 
dus” (in dance and drunkenness, riot and revel), and the “long- 
frocked” clergy of sleeping the deep sleep of “dead” orthodoxy. 
Usually he was right. On the other hand, Eielsen seems to have 
been one of that large class of people whose hearts and minds at 
some crucial time in their lives receive a flood of new impulses, bring- 
ing them entirely up to the point of saturation; after that they seem 
incapable of revising their judgments, though conditions change 
greatly. Spiritual conditions in Norway did change a great deal 
after the foundation of the university in 1813, with the pious Ste- 


* Quoted from Bothne, op. cit., 833. 


IMMIGRATION AND UNORGANIZED LAY ACTIVITY 41 


nersen and Hersleb as teachers, and Wexels as preacher to the theo- 
logical students. Entirely oblivious to this fact, Eielsen continued 
his tirades against the clergy as clergymen were in his youth. In 
order to keep his sermon fresh, he moved from place to place, his 
campaign-like repetition of certain catch phrases and his extensive 
travels giving him a very wide influence indeed. 

As might be expected, the clergy took up the gage of battle with 
Eielsen, though they were too wary to persecute him. This honor, 
as he regarded it, came to him in Denmark, where he was imprisoned, 
but soon released at the intercession of Prince Christian and Princess 
Caroline Amalia. Fielsen and his followers were human enough to 
take some pride in this incident.*® But it was not unmixed blessing, 
as Eielsen was less inclined than ever to take orders from John Haug- 
valdstad and the other leaders of Haugeanism in Norway. In spite 
of Haugvaldstad’s repeated warnings that Eielsen be prudent, Eiel- 
sen persisted in his rather aggressive ways of dealing with the clergy 
and the authorities. Finally it was with great difficulty that Eielsen 
was permitted to hold devotional meetings at “Bredtvedt,’ Hauge’s 
homestead. FEielsen’s blunt ways served as an invigorating force to 
Haugeanism in Norway; his emigration, however, was opportune, 
inasmuch as an inevitable break in the Haugean ranks in Norway 
was thereby averted.*’ 

This man, then, came to the Fox River settlement in 1839 and 
took hold of the religious situation with characteristic vigor. Eiel- 
sen built himself a large log house, the “upstairs” of which served 
as his “‘meeting-house,”’ this being the first of its kind among the 
Norwegian Lutherans in America. Elling fairly made the rafters 
ring with his fiery eloquence against the sects and, as a result, he 
drove practically all of them—excepting the Mormons—out of the 
settlement, and brought most of the wayward Fox River settlers 
back into the Lutheran Church. 

Realizing that careful indoctrination was the only safeguard 
against the sects, Eielsen determined to procure textbooks for the 
instruction of the young. Anxious that no change should be made 
in the text of his beloved Pontoppidan’s Explanation, Eielsen walked 
the whole distance from Rock County, Wisconsin, to New York City 
in search of a printer who had precisely the same kinds of types as 
those used in Eielsen’s copy. Finally succeeding in his quest, he had 
an edition of Pontoppidan’s Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth unto 
Godliness) printed in 1842. This was the first Norwegian book to 
be printed in America. 

Wonderful as Eielsen’s work was, he succeeded only in part. He 
routed the sects at Fox River, but he unfortunately widened the gulf 
between laity and clergy, putting an almost indelible stamp of low- 
churchism upon the settlement. 


“Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. cit., 41 ff. See J. A. Bergh, Den norsk 
lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amertka, 13. 
“ Bergh, op. cit., 13. 


CHALLE RIEL 
A NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 


In contrast to the low-church, practically anti-clerical, Fox River 
settlers stands the great mass of immigration which was decidedly 
friendly toward the pastors and their work. This type was exempli- 
fied somewhat incompletely at Muskego, and to a very full degree at 
Koshkonong. Both of these centers reprsented a decided advance 
over the Fox River type, undoubtedly because they had had a dif- 
ferent religious background in Norway. Over against the anti-clert- 
cal Stavangerings stand the Numedalians, Vossings, and Telemark- 
ings, all of whom brought with them a profound respect for the 
clergy and their work. We shall now turn our attention to this new 
type of immigrant as it is found at Muskego. 

In our narrative above we dismissed Ole Rynning and the party 
of 1837 with the bare statement that they were dissuaded from going 
to the Fox River settlement. This fateful decision, which was 
fraught with fearfully disastrous results to this party, did, neverthe- 
less, have a vital bearing on future emigration to America, conse- 
quently also on Norwegian American Lutheranism. 

While en route to Chicago, Ole Rynning’s party was joined at 
Detroit by Ole and Ansten Nattestad, circumstances thus bringing 
together three men who jointly were to play a role of unparalleled 
importance in the promotion of Norwegian immigration. When 
Rynning’s party came to Chicago, they were dissuaded from going 
to the Fox River settlement by some land agents who wished to sell 
them land at Beaver Creek, Iroquis County, about seventy-five miles 
south of Chicago.t. Upon recommendation of four of their own num- 
ber, who had been sent to investigate the matter, the party chose the 
Beaver Creek site and proceeded with their newly purchased oxen 
and wagons to this land of promise. But, alas, the land, which had 
been dry in late summer, became a lake in spring; besides this, the 
swampy land reeked with malaria, and practically the whole party, 
including Ole Rynning, died from this dread disease. The Natte- 
stads and a few other survivors abandoned their precious holdings 
and fled for their lives. Mons Aadland, the last man to leave, was 
fortunate enough to exchange his land for a small herd of cattle. 

In the course of these misfortunes, Ole Rynning stood out as 
a hero indeed. Born April 4, 1809, in Ringsaker, Norway, Ole’s 
father, the Rev. Jens Rynning, had given his son a university edu- 


*S. Nilsson in Billed-Magazin, 30. 
42 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 43 


cation with the idea of making a minister of him. But Ole thought 
otherwise, and when he was betrothed to a girl that his father did 
not regard as suitable for the minister’s son, Ole took the matter 
into his own hands and determined to seek his own and his be- | 
trothed’s fortunes in the New World. It was fortunate for the 
4é gy party that Ole undertook the trip, as he proved himself an able 
leader on several occasions.? With calm courage in the most dis- 
tressing situations, and with unfailing patience with the fault-finding 
immigrants, he managed the affairs of the luckless colony in a mas- 
terful way. 

On one of his exploring expeditions, undertaken in behalf of the 
settlers, Rynning trudged through the Beaver Creek marshes at a 
time when they were covered with a thin layer of ice. When he 
reached the colony, his feet were so frozen and lacerated that he was 
confined to his bed for a long time. In the course of this confine- 
ment, he improved his time by working on the manuscript of a small 
book that has now become of untold importance as a source of the 
history of this early period. When completed the booklet was given 
the ponderous title which in translation reads: True Account of 
America for the Information and Help of Peasant and Commoner. 
Written by a Norwegian who arrived there in the month of June, 
1837. Christiania, 1838.8 

As he wrote his interesting account of American conditions for 
the average man in Norway, Rynning consulted Ansten Nattestad 
and others, making this first Norwegian American book a truly rep- 
resentative work. Although Rynning recovered his health at this 
time, he fell sick again in the fall and died. Fortunately he had fin- 
ished his book and entrusted its publication to Ansten Nattestad. 
Ansten left for Norway in the spring of 1838—that is, a few months 
before Rynning’s death—with Rynning’s and his brother Ole’s 
manuscripts. In 1839 he succeeded in having published at Dram- 
men, Norway, both Rynning’s True Account and Ole Nattestad’s 
Beskrivelse over en Reise til Nordamerika (Description of a Journey 
to North America).* Rynning, who gave his very life for the cause 
of immigration, thus raised above himself a monument more 
enduring than marble, as his deeds and his book stamp him 
as a worthy father of a large movement. He was the literary 
William Bradford and the kindly William Penn of the Norwegian 
Americans. 

Shifting the scene from the pest-ridden American wilds to Nor- 
way, we see that Ansten Nattestad could hardly have aroused more 


* Theo. C. Blegen’s Introduction to his translation of Ole Rynning, “True 
Account,” in Minnesota History Bulletin, November, 1917, 221 ff. 

* This work has been translated by Theo. C. Blegen and published in 
Minnesota History Bulletin, II, 235. 

*Ole Knudson Nattestad’s Description of a Journey to North America 
is of great value as a source for this early history. It has been translated 
into English by R. B. Anderson and published in the Wisconsin Magazine of 
History, December, 1917. 


44 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


interest if he had returned from a trip to the moon.’ Since he had 
been consulted by Rynning in the course of the writing of True Ac- 
count, Nattestad could verify by word of mouth all that had been 
said in the book. This made a profound impression; people traveled 
as much as twenty Norwegian miles (one hundred and forty English 
miles) to see and hear Ansten Nattestad, with the result that emi- 
gration became the topic of the day even in quite remote districts. 
So completely were men carried away by the idea of emigration that 
their frenzied interest in this matter has been aptly described as “the 
America fever.” By the time this “epidemic” had spent its force, 
it had deprived Norway of nearly a million of her choicest citizens. 
Though no longer a “fever,’’-it still takes its toll of the flower of 
the Norwegian citizenry. 

Norwegian patriots could not remain inactive in the face of such 
a crisis. Literary men like Henrik Wergeland, Bjornstjerne Bjorn- 
son, and others poured forth their contemptuous wrath upon those 
who turned their backs upon the mother country. Wergeland 
angrily denounced emigration as an act of a dastardly treacherous 
nature.° The pastors, like Ole Rynning’s father, warned the people 
against emigration. Rev. Jens Rynning “even preached from the 
pulpit and urged the people to be discreet, and described the hard- 
ships of the voyage and the cruelty of the American savage in the 
most forbidding colors.” * Others circulated the weirdest stories 
about America, and about the dangers connected with crossing the 
ocean. Some reported that the captains of the vessels sold the emi- 
grants as slaves to the Turks; others said that the ocean was infested 
with terrible sea-monsters which could gobble up a whole ship in 
one gulp. Evena worse fate than being thus swallowed alive awaited 
those who were shipwrecked by icebergs and captured by the savage 
Indians. There was apparently no limit to the materials that were 
pressed into the service of this desperate counter propaganda. 

But it was all in vain. Ole Rynning’s book and the many letters 
home satisfactorily answered all these prejudicial statements about 
America. In 1839, only one year after Ansten Nattestad returned 
to Norway, two large parties, one of a hundred from Numedal 
and one of forty from Tin, Telemarken, emigrated to America. The 
news of the sad fate of Ole Rynning and the Beaver Creek settlers 
dampened the ardor for emigration for a time. But after a lull dur- 
ing 1840 and 1841, emigration set in in full earnest and, except under 
extraordinary circumstances, has not abated to this day. 

Settlements sprang up on all sides in Illinois and Wisconsin, and, 
later, in Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana. Many of the 


*S. Nilsson in Billed-Magazin, I, 7. 
_°See his poem in Th. Bothne, Kort Udsigt in Heggtveit, [Jlustreret Kirke- 
historie, 816. 
ene Nilsson in Billed-Magazin, I, 45. Quoted by Theo. C. Blegen in his 
introduction to Ole Rynning, “True Account,” in Minnesota History Bulletin, 
November, 1917. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 45 


early settlers went by way of the Fox River settlement and not so 
few settled there. Other settlements were founded in the following 
order: Indian Creek (Leland) and Chicago, Illinois, 1836; Beaver 
Creek, Wisconsin, 1837; Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin, 1838; Mus- 
kego and Rock Prairie, Wisconsin, and Rock Run, Illinois, 1839; 
Koshkonong, Wisconsin, 1840; Hamilton, Wisconsin, 1841 ; and Lis- 
bon, Queen Ann, and Long Prairie, Illinois, at about the same time or 
a little later. The compactness of these settlements made it pos- 
sible later for the same pastor to serve several settlements. It is 
worth noticing that the bulk of this immigration came from Voss, 
Numedal, and Telemarken. 

We have noted that the pastors in Norway opposed emigration 
on patriotic grounds; at this time we wish to add that they opposed 
it even more strenuously on religious grounds. The pastors felt 
that their parishioners would be exposed to some very real spiritual 
dangers in the new land, and their first impulse was to deal harshly 
with those who showed such a reckless disregard of their own spir- 
itual welfare as to emigrate away from the church of their fathers. 
When they recognized that they were unable to stem the tide, the 
pastors accommodated themselves surprisingly well to the perplexing 
situation. While with the one hand they were still combating the 
wild schemes of emigration which threatened their flock with real 
hardships, with the other they began to build up in the prospective 
emigrant a protecting wall of sound Christianity that should be a 
tower of strength to him wherever he went. Besides admonishing 
the adults—sometimes with more zeal than wisdom, to be sure— 
the pastors instructed their confirmants with an impassioned fervor 
that should steel them for any trial of faith whether at home or 
abroad. Spiritual modesty and reticent self-respect have made men 
hesitate to bring these precious and sacred spiritual experiences be- 
fore the irreverent tribunal of public opinion; hence the powerful 
effect of these admonitions has not received the attention it deserves. 
But the pastor saw the haunting specter of emigration in every bright 
eye in his confirmation class. What did it mean? What spiritual 
pitfalls were strewn in the paths of these dear young boys and girls? 
He wept at the thought of it. And at confirmation he sent them 
away with quivering words of admonition that burned like living fire 
in the young breasts. No Lutheran readily forgets his confirmation 
day, and if anyone had reason to remember it, these young people 
certainly had, as they instinctively felt that the future was charged 
with an evil as well as a good portent. And when with heavy feet 
they went to the pastor to get their certificate of good character, or 
“attest” as they called it, they again encountered the same heartfelt 
solicitude for their spiritual welfare. What happened in the last 
solemn hour of leave-taking is a closed book to outsiders; this much 
we know, however, that strong men have reverently testified to the 
power of that last farewell. 

*jJ. A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie 1 Amerika, 9. 


46 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


It becomes almost superfluous to say that immigrants who were 
thus sent away carried with them only the most cherished memories 
of their pastor and his work. From this group one should hardly 
expect a deep-seated antipathy such as that found among the Stavan- 
gerings at Fox River. This was the churchly element, which, though 
it had all the faults and frailties of any other group, still had some 
qualifications for transplanting organized Norwegian Lutheranism 
to American soil. The leadership of this group first centered in the 
laymen at Muskego, but was later transferred to the congregations 
and pastor at Koshonong. We shall, therefore, go back and trace 
somewhat in detail the history of the Muskego settlement. 

The Muskego settlement derives its name from the Muskego lake 
region. Two distinct attempts at settlement were made here. The 
first of these attempts was by a party of forty immigrants who came 
from Tin in Upper Telemarken in 1839, under the leadership of John 
Nelson Luraas. Not the remotest hint is given that religious perse- 
cution of any kind entered in as a cause for their emigration. John 
Nelson Luraas says that he had married the woman of his choice and, 
when he saw no prospect of supporting her in Norway, he emigrated. 
He surmised that the others in his party emigrated for financial rea- 
sons also.® When this party of Telemarkians came to Milwaukee, 
the story has it that they were dissuaded from proceeding to Fox 
River, their original destination, by some land agents who put up a 
very corpulent Mr. Walker as an example of what they might expect 
if they remained in Wisconsin Territory, contrasting him with a hol- 
low-chested and coughing specimen from Illinois. The newcomers 
were impressed, but not convinced until, finally, the land agents, per- 
ceiving that the immigrants were sweltering in their heavy, woolen, 
home-spun clothes, told with great effect about the fearful summer 
heat in the neighboring state to the south! ?° Whatever the merits of 
the story, the Telemarkians abandoned their plans of going to Fox 
River and bought land on the shores of Lake Muskego in Wisconsin 
for a dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. As at Beaver Creek, the 
marshes were dried up in summer and the long grass was a delight 
to the heart and eye of the immigrants; but when the fall rains came 
much of the region was flooded. With characteristic hardihood, the 
immigrants decided to remain and cultivate as much of their land as 
they could. Though the marshes were literally infested with ague, 
fever, and malaria, these settlers, reénforced by others from Norway, 
held out doggedly until cholera almost wiped out the settlement in 
1849 and 1850. Asa result of this calamity, this section of-the Mus- 
kego Lake region fell into disrepute and was shunned by immigrants 
for years. The settlement was further so weakened by the departure 
of the original settlers that it became of no consequence until later, 


°S. Nilsson in Billed-Mogazin, I, 7. 
* Ibid., I, 8 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 47 


when the stream of settlers from other parts took up land in this 
practically abandoned region.*? 

The other attempt at settlement referred to above was more suc- 
cessful. When Elling Eielsen came to Fox River in 1839, two other 
men of consequence were in his party, namely, Soren Bakke and Jo- 
hannes Johannesen. These men came to Fox River with the rest 
of their party, but when they felt the cold wind sweep over the open 
prairies they set out in search of a more suitable place to settle. 
They came to what is now Norway, Racine County, Wisconsin, and 
bought a large tract of land on Wind Lake in what became the very 
heart of a series of settlements now known as the Muskego settle- 
ment. Into the sides of a large Indian mound where hundreds of 
redskins were buried, they burrowed a “dugout,” which was destined 
to serve as a land-office, a general store, a center of culture, and a 
clearing-house for aid and information to the immigrants. Johanne- 
sen and Bakke immediately sent to their home city, Drammen, Nor- 
way, for Even Heg who, with a number of his townsmen, came over 
in 1840. Heg entered into partnership with the proprietors of the 
“dugout,” and under the wise guidance of Heg and Johannesen many 
new enterprises were started. Heg built a large barn in which hun- 
dreds of Norwegians were temporarily quartered until they could 
find employment or land. Though some of these camped in his 
“hotel” an undue length of time and otherwise abused his hospital- 
ity, Heg was always both willing and resourceful in aiding them. 
Since the United States had no uniform currency system at the time, 
the “dugout” firm was called upon to straighten out many financial 
tangles. Of Heg and Johannesen it must be said that they had the 
undivided confidence and respect of the settlers far and wide. In 
passing, it might be noted that Heg’s son, Hans, became the beloved 
colonel of the celebrated 15th Wisconsin regiment which did valiant 
service during the Civil War. 

In spite of all this activity, the spiritual welfare of the people 
was by no means neglected. In the absence of regularly ordained 
pastors, Even Heg and his two associates, Soren Bakke and J. Jo- 
hannesen, directed the spiritual affairs of the community. And they 
did it with marked success. Men of standing, with fervent and 
sound Haugean tendencies, these men made Heg’s barn the center 
of religious activity. Besides preaching and doing some personal 
work, Even Heg performed so many emergency baptisms for people 
in even distant settlements that hundreds were inscribed in his bap- 
tismal records. But this wide activity never tempted the Muskego 
lay preachers to constitute themselves the final authorities in spiritual 
matters. Though they performed such emergency acts as might any 
Christian under the circumstances, they kept in mind that these were 


= [bid., 11. Johan R. Reiersen in Veiviser for Norske Emigranter til de 
forenede nordamerikanske Stater og Texas (Christiania, 1844) spoke slight- 
ingly of the Muskego settlement, giving it a bad reputation in Norway. 


48 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


mere emergency makeshifts. In order to remedy a situation which 
manifestly did not fully serve their purpose, the Muskego lay preach- 
ers initiated the proceedings that culminated in the call and ordina- 
tion of Claus Lauritz Clausen in 1843. That this arrangement was 
in harmony with the ideals of the Muskego leaders is best illustrated 
by the fact that Rev. C. L. Clausen preached in Heg’s barn until a 
more suitable house of worship could be erected. The Muskego 
lay preachers assumed the leadership in the emergency created by the 
absence of pastors; after the pastors came they yielded their post of 
leadership and assumed their position among the laity. There was 
thus at Muskego at least a very friendly attitude toward the pastoral 
office, with none of the deep-seated animosity toward the clerical 
class that we find at Fox River. Throughout it all there is evident 
a very fine sense of propriety and a definite recognition of the limita- 
tions that good church order sets upon the functions of a lay leader. 

At Fox River the situation was quite different. Though there 
might have been some realization of the need for certain pastoral 
services, Elling Eielsen’s fiery and indiscriminate denunciations of 
the clergy as a class could not but tear down the settlers’ respect for 
the clerical office. Not a few felt that real piety resided with the lay 
preachers rather than with the kind of State Church pastors they 
had known in Norway—for which opinion there were, alas, too good 
grounds. Since order was a strong point with the clerical class, these 
anti-clerical elements stressed informality to such a point that an 
almost complete lack of order resulted. Individual piety could best 
be developed under free forms, they maintained; but the absence of 
orderly safeguards quite generally resulted in a despotic domina- 
tion by a few powerful leaders. Church order was largely disre- 
garded by Eielsen on the ground that it was “high-churchly” and 
“State-churchly.” 

Even at this early stage, then, when there was not a single or- 
dained Norwegian Lutheran pastor in America, a very noticeable 
difference existed between Fox River and Muskego, both of which 
were Haugean. In nothing is this difference more clearly brought 
out than in the attitude these settlements took toward Elling Fielsen. 
Elling Etelsen spent fully as much time at Muskego as at Fox River, 
and he even married a Muskego girl, Sigri Nelson by name, on 
July 3, 1843. At Muskego, FEielsen’s invectives against the clergy 
only aroused disgust among the people, who greatly preferred the 
constructive work of Even Heg; at Fox River, these invectives were 
a source of strength to Eielsen. Consequently, when Eielsen made 
a bid for the leadership at Muskego as well as at Fox River, Muskego 
rejected him, whereas Fox River had accepted him. Had the temper 
of the people at Muskego been the same as at Fox River, they would 
have preferred Eielsen to Heg, Johannesen, and Bakke. Since Eiel- 
sen was an extreme partisan who distinguished very sharply between 
ours, as he called his adherents, and the great mass (den store hob), 
as he called those not belonging to him, Muskego’s failure to accept 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS § 49 


his leadership was sufficient cause for a cleavage. Right here, be- 
tween Eielsen, still a lay preacher, and the lay leaders at Muskego, 
we have the seeds of dissension that were to bear an abundant crop 
of discussion and misery. It is the eternal question of power trans- 
ferred from Norway to America. At the bottom of the cleavage 
that resulted in two distinct church traditions in America, typified 
later in the Norwegian Synod and the Hauge’s Synod, we have, not 
so much a question of Lutheranism, nor even of Haugeanism (the 
original schism was between Haugeans), but one of the balance of 
power between the clergy and the so-called “laymen.” ‘This cleav- 
age was brought to America by the immigrants themselves, as we 
very clearly see from the difference in temper already apparent at 
Muskego and Fox River. For this, let no one blame the pastors; 
there were no ordained Lutheran pastors among the Norwegians in 
America at this time. To understand this difference in tempera- 
ment we must go back to conditions in Norway as they were at the 
time of emigration. 

The fundamental reason for the difference that was already ap- 
parent between the Muskego and Fox River settlers is directly 
traceable to different religious backgrounds in Norway. The Fox 
River settlement was recruited chiefly from Stavanger, where it is 
admitted by even the most zealous defenders of the liberal religious 
policy of Norway that some persecutions took place. The Consti- 
tution of 1814 provided for religious liberty within the Lutheran 
Church, but the eventuality of a non-Lutheran sect coming to Nor- 
way was not provided for in this hastily drawn up document. Con- 
sequently, when the converts to Quakerism returned to Stavanger 
after the peace of 1814,’ the officials of the Church and State were 
confronted by a situation in which they had to act “according te 
their discretion.” Stephen Grellet, as we have seen, through the 
French king memorialized the king of Sweden and Norway in be- 
half of the Quakers, and the king promised leniency. But the 
Quakers, whose delight it was to fly in the face of the existing order 
in Church and State both in England and America, could hardly be 
expected to adapt themselves to the established order of things in 
Norway. Mr. B. L. Wick says, as we have already observed, that 
“they [the Quakers] discarded water baptism, accepted no Lord’s 
Supper, refused to take an oath, objected to the military service im- 
posed by law upon every able-bodied Norseman”—in all, four counts, 
two against the Church and two against the State. The Quakers 
were so revolutionary for those times that the local Church and 
State officials soon felt constrained to take action. Thus, before 1826 
Elias Tastad suffered persecution on the point of the Quaker burial 
of his twin daughters, and between 1830 and 1845 the Quakers, 
who sometimes recklessly challenged the power of Church and State, 


™ See above, 24 ff. 
“Gunnar Malmin, “Norsk Landnam i U. S.,” III, in Decorah Posten, 
November 28, 1924. 


50 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


suffered certain inconveniences. The average citizen, not always 
able to distinguish between governmental oppression and the legiti- 
mate enforcement of existing laws, usually sympathized with the 
Quakers, especially since the Quakers lost no opportunity to befriend 
the masses, whereas the overbearing officials often shocked and 
startled the people by their brutal conduct. Just why the Haugeans 
at Stavanger sympathized with the Quakers becomes entirely clear 
when we consider that Haugeanism here represented a number of 
different types of people, whose chief bond of union was opposition 
to the governing classes in Church and State. Stavanger also fur- 
nished the mighty leader of the whole revolt—Ole Gabriel Ueland. 
This solid Stavangering bonde dominated the entire nation for a 
short time, defying even the king of Sweden-Norway. At Stavan- 
ger, the center of this whole movement of revolt against the clergy 
and office-holding class, feeling naturally ran high against these 
classes. And sympathy and fellowship in a struggle of this kind 
could not but result in an interchange of views also on points of 
church government. Ejielsen thus had several very distinctly Qua- 
kerish ideas on church government which the Stavangerings at Fox 
River (among whom were many Quakers) shared fully with him. 
He believed in an extremely free, almost unorderly, form of church 
worship in which the spirit should be untrammeled. Anyone who 
had the inner call could preach, whether man or woman; indeed it 
was said that Mrs. Elling Eielsen preached better than her husband 
did. Eielsen also had something that approached the “inner light” 
of the Quakers.** Eielsen, of course, did not share the Quaker view 
that the Sacraments should be dispensed with, but he laid such stress 
on subjective feeling, particularly in conversion, that the objective 
need of the Sacrament was somewhat left out of consideration. In 
such a scheme of things the pastor was not of much use, as he was 
by no means to have undisputed right to religious leadership in this 
spiritual priesthood of believers. Nor were his services in connec- 
tion with the administration of the Sacraments of paramount im- 
portance where subjective values overshadowed the objective. Had 
it not been for the move made by the Muskego lay preachers to or- 
dain Clausen, it is uncertain whether the Fox River settlers would 
have desired any change in their system, since their leaders were 
everything but friendly toward the pastors. The Fox River “lay- 
men’s activity,” in which practically all functions are either centered 
in lay leaders or ignored, was abandoned when Eielsen was ordained 
in 1843, though his attitude toward the pastors remained unchanged. 
Like Janus of old, he faced in both directions, being an ardent 
“layman” at the same time as he himself claimed to be ordained. 

In contrast to this, the settlers of Muskego were of a very dif- 
ferent type. Coming from Voss, Numedal, and Telemarken, they 


_™ Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 29 (re- 
minded by his spirit not to remain) ;* 33 (given power by Holy Spirit to 
remember Bible passages), and other references. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 51 


had felt, it is true, the impulses both of the social revolution and of 
Eielsen’s work while he was in Norway, but had retained in a gen- 
eral way their respect and affection for their pastors, with the result 
that when they came to America they preferred the more formal 
Lutheran church order with a pastor as the chief functionary to 
the more informal, low-church, Fox River order. Eielsen was from 
Voss, but he differed greatly from the people of his home district 
on this point. 

Political events had also taken a sharp turn in 1836, giving the 
immigrants of 1839 a far different “last impression” as they left 
the motherland than that gotten by the emigrants of 1833 and on. 
Since these “last impressions,” like arrested memories, were peren- 
nially new in the immigrant’s mind, they became more than passing 
events in the drama of life: forms long since passed away were con- 
tinually on the stage, and the issues of a past generation were not 
cooled nor solved but left just as he last saw them. These impres- 
sions play in also in his American interests. The later arrivals had 
witnessed a political reaction which took its beginning in 1836, so 
that in 1839 and in 1842 the bdnder-Haugean combination did not 
return majorities to the Storthing. This revulsion of feeling had 
tended to give the pastor his rightful place as a reaction against the 
extreme claims of some lay leaders who earnestly strove to wrest 
from the clergy certain rights and privileges that for ages had been 
vested solely in them. This was too much for the conservative Nor- 
wegians, who were not ready for changes of this kind. What the 
pastors thus gained in popular estimation was reflected by the later 
arrivals, among whom there were hundreds who would not raise their 
voices to preach, but who, nevertheless, spoke by the mighty voice 
of preference. The later arrivals at Muskego came with a different 
“last impression” from that brought over by many of the Fox River 
settlers who had come to America several years earlier. These two 
factors, then, the different religious experiences in the old country, 
and the changed political-social conditions in the homeland, must 
form the background against which must be thrown the contrasting 
figures of Eielsen and the Muskego lay preachers. Of similar spirit 
to Muskego, and soon to surpass it in number of inhabitants, was 
the Koshkonong settlement, which in 1840 had seven or eight hun- 
Se nag Muskego six hundred, and Fox River four hundred and 

ty. . 

Whatever success the Fox River lay system had at first, it soon 
became evident that it could not make good its claims to lay leader- 
ship similar to that exercised successfully in Norway. In spite of 
all revolts, the pastors in Norway had remained a superposed clerical 
class conveniently at hand to administer the Sacraments, solemnize 
marriage, and bury the dead. But in America there was no such 
superposed class, as the lay leaders were soon to realize. Certain 
psychological factors aided the lay system at first, but the sobering 

*R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, 438. 


52 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


effect of pioneer life soon exposed its weaknesses and inadequacy. 
In the face of new adventure and exaggerated ideas of what the 
future had in store, the immigrant refused to think seriously about 
what it would mean to build a church in a “free country.” If he 
thought of it at all, it was as any child of the State Church might 
visualize it. In Norway the State appointed the clergy, superin- 
tended their conduct in office, and levied taxes on the people for 
their support. Since the pastor was more of an official of the State 
than a servant of the congregation, the relation between congrega- 
tion and pastor was not as a rule very intimate and confidential. 
Even where a fairly good relationship had existed, this relationship 
had become somewhat strained at the time of emigration. Instead 
of feeling that the pastors’ warnings against the dangers of emigra- 
tion were sincere, the emigrant quite often regarded them as ex- 
pressions of prejudice and wounded pride. Some even delighted in 
the thought that their pastor, who on other occasions had been able 
to command, now was reduced to the necessity of coaxing and 
cajoling. Since they wished to get away from their hard lot in Nor- 
way, the people put more faith in Rynning’s, Nattestad’s, and later, 
Johan Reinert Reiersen’s assertions that there were numberless sects 
in America, all believing in one true God, than in the pastors’ pessi- 
mistic description of the spiritual pitfalls in the new land. With a 
fling of independence, they airily declared themselves free from 
priestly dominance ; they set out for America feeling that the pastors 
were all wrong. These satiate children of the State Church, who 
could hardly conceive of a situation where spiritual boons were not 
heaped, yes, at times, forced, upon them, left the Mother Church 
with a certain feeling of peevishness, little dreaming that these 
boons would ever be regarded in any other light. 

This attitude has often been described as being the result of 
“persecution.” That it was nothing of the kind can be seen from 
the fact that many who had never been “persecuted,” but, on the 
contrary, were quite staunch church people both in Norway and 
America, for a time suffered under this nausea of spiritual satiety. 
In this state it mattered little who preached, or what was preached, 
so long as the preachers did not demand more than occasional church 
attendance and a semblance of spiritual respectability. 

But the immigrants were soon to realize that the pastors’ over- 
drawn and fanciful pictures of the hardships of emigration had an 
allegoric, though not a literal, basis in truth; instead of sea-monsters 
there were other dangers that were far more real and terrible. 
Leave-taking was to be harder than they had imagined; travel by 
ill-equipped conveyances was both tedious and dangerous; and at 
every turn there were sharpers and swindlers who tried the wits and 
the patience of these simple, but honest, people. Land had to be 
selected, and while the husband walked the seventy miles or so to 
obtain his title to it, the wife and children were in constant appre- 
hension lest something should happen to themselves or to the hus- 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 53 


band. A log hut or “dugout’? became the primitive seat of the 
blessed and mighty institution called “home.” More pressing duties 
prevented the husband from attending to such details as building a 
fence around the “house” to prevent wild animals from prowling, 
and the cattle from licking the windowpanes and foraging for cloth- 
ing or other articles left outside the doorstep by the busy housewife.*® 
When they were somewhat past the absorbing bustle of getting shel- 
ter, it dawned upon them that this “house,” serviceable as it might 
be, was not “home” to them. Not realizing that it takes time for 
the fine tendrils of home ties and home experiences to take root, 
they, like the homesick souls of old, hung their harps on the willows 
because their hearts refused to sing. They were not easily consoled. 
The birds did not sing here as in Norway; the timid flowers that hid 
their blazing crowns in the tall grass did not have the wonted fra- 
grance; the berries on the fat American hillsides were not so sweet 
as those on the chary Norwegian mountainsides ;*’ and trees and 
rugged landscapes were liabilities, not objects of beauty. It was a 
hard and sad, though not joyless, life. Would to God they had 
followed their pastor’s good advice! 

With the thought of the pastor’s good advice in practical affairs, 
came a flood of half-forgotten spiritual admonitions, particularly to 
read the Word of God diligently. One by one the devotional 
books and hymnals emerge from their covert without ostentation, and 
the diffident immigrant now takes hold of his old hymn-book and 
with rusty voice begins to sing. He soon forgets his embarrassment, 
and his song, like the skylark’s, grows in volume and beauty as his 
spirit rises and approaches nearer the throne of grace.’® Spiritual 
hunger had arisen where formerly there had been only satiety: the 
Word of the Lord was becoming precious in the land. 

Nor did the work of his hands prosper as he had dreamt it should. 
When, after boundless exertion, he had cleared a plot of ground, or 
staked out some prairie, and with his slow-going oxen and primitive 
plow had turned the sod, the decaying vegetation, instead of serving 
the immigrant by enriching the soil, struck back at its destroyer by 
producing malaria, ague, and fever. Prof. Anderson describes this: 


The season of fever and ague has come. We visit a little log 
cabin, and find all its occupants sick. In this home and in these 
surroundings which required all the patience and resignation that 
could be mustered in health, sickness wears a darker garb, and the 
new settlement always gets a double amount of sickness. The few 
distant neighbors are afflicted in a similar manner and can render no 


7° Some of these inconveniences are described by Elizabeth Koren in her 
delightful Erindringer (Recollections). Mrs. Koren was the wife of Dr. V. 
Koren, pioneer pastor and president of the Norwegian Synod from 1894 to 
IQI0. 

* Ibid. 

% Th. Bothne, op. cit., tells of how touched he was once at seeing a 
strong man sit outside his “dugout” singing the powerful hymns out of a 
well-worn Lutheran Salmebog (hymnal). 


54 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


assistance. The poor invalids need stout hearts and steady nerves 
not to quail under their affliction, and repent the day when they 
resolved to emigrate; but the bridges are burnt behind them and 
there is nothing for them to do but make the best of it. How gloomy 
the world looks through those bilious eyes with throbbing temples 
and aching limbs! Death would be a relief to that homesick heart. 
There were seasons in the Fox River settlement and at Koshkonong » 
when nearly all the inhabitants were prostrated by ague and fever.” 


Rev. C. L. Clausen says that in 1843 in Muskego only one house 
escaped the ravages of these enervating diseases; deaths occurred 
daily.2° These fearful conditions brought forth unprecedented deeds 
of heroism and self-sacrifice. ‘Though exposure often meant death, 
the settlers ministered tenderly to each other’s needs as far as 
means and endurance at all permitted. Partly because the settlers 
were too ill to till the soil, and partly because of the influx of poverty- 
stricken immigrants who soon fell ill, the slender means of the set- 
tlers were so completely exhausted that financial aid actually had to 
be sought from outsiders.?4_ What little there had been of “milk and 
honey” so far in this lonely and terrible land had been badly mixed 
with the bitter salt of briny tears; indeed, it might truly be said that 
the soil of Muskego, Koshkonong, and Fox River had been conse- 
crated by the tears of brave men and women who suffered almost 
beyond human endurance. 

In the face of the terrible realities of hardships, privations, sick- 
ness, and death, where human endeavors and calculations counted for 
so little, the immigrant, who had come to America chiefly to earn his 
bread, found that man does not live by bread alone. He turned with 
avidity to the self-constituted lay preachers, and though he received 
much comfort from the Word the Lord put into the mouths of these, 
it became increasingly evident that, once the craving for spiritual 
things had arisen, the immigrant would not be content with their 
imperfect and partial presentation of the Gospel Truth. It was not 
that the lay preachers lacked spiritual vision—they had that, though 
the spiritual eye of many of them was blurred by the cataracts of 
prejudice and anti-clericalism. Even this could have been overlooked, 
had the lay preachers been at all able to cope with the situation 
otherwise. ‘The lay preachers could preach; yet it was not the full- 
rounded Gospel with the objective as well as the subjective note that 
the immigrant had heard from the well-educated clergy in Norway. 
The lay preachers could baptize; yet, at best, though always regarded 
valid, these baptisms were mere emergency acts to be confirmed by 
a pastor in church. Under the sore and constant trial of faith, the 
need of the Lord’s Supper was felt very keenly by the lonesome, 


* R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 436. 
® Quoted by H. Halvorsen, Festskrift til den Norske Synodes Jubilaeum 
fe (Lutheran Publishing House, Decorah, Iowa, 1903), I5. 
id. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 55 


the sick, the dying, and the bereaved. Some lay preachers pre- 
sumed to administer this Sacrament,?? but many Christians objected 
to this practice. Though the immigrants could be married by a jus- 
tice of the peace, they desired the blessings of the Church on their 
union, a thing which they felt that the unordained were unauthor- 
ized to give.2*> In the matter of the cure of souls, the laymen were 
deficient in certain elements of training and in the broad knowledge 
of human nature that would enable them to be of help to those whose 
spiritual experiences had been different from their own. But the 
decisive test of their sufficiency came in the dark hour when death 
snatched away one of the family. For centuries the conception had 
been built up that the dead must be properly buried—the people 
shuddered at the fate of the ungodly who were denied these last sa- 
cred rites. Although lay preachers could perform these rites, 
it was not by any means the same as if performed by an ordained 
pastor. 

Not only did the lay preachers fall short at the crucial points as 
to the quality of their ministration, but the pretentious among them 
were powerless to impress the average immigrant with the dignity of 
their self-constituted office.2* Bjornson’s statement that, “in the 
minds of the Norwegian people the church stands on a high place,” 
has a twofold meaning: The Norwegians have built the House of 
God (usually on a high hill) about as soon as they have finished their 
own homes; and they have put the Church and all that is connected 
with it outside the vulgar domains of the commonplace. The pas- 
tor was truly “set apart’ as a man of God, and though these early 
lay preachers in America enjoyed the fullest confidence of the peo- 
ple, the people felt very keenly that the holy offices should not be 
performed by one of their own number. 

On the whole, it must be said that by the middle of 1843 there 
was a conscious or unconscious desire for services by regularly or- 
dained clergy. The lay preachers had performed a most useful labor 
of love and mercy, but the increasing population and the bitter ex- 
periences of pioneer life demanded more systematic and thorough 
spiritual work. The immigrants, who had seemingly broken the 
bands of spiritual restraint, were now ready and willing to share 
their huts, their half-tame stock, the meager returns for their stren- 
uous labors, yes, the very necessaries of life, with any pastor who 
was kind and brave enough to come to America to break the Bread 
of Life for them. 

In this period of unorganized lay activity, ending in October, 
1843, we have taken into account the immediate causes for the first 
emigration of 1825; we have examined the religious history of the 


“J. W. C. Dietrichson, Reise, 36. 
* See H. G. Stub, “Fra fars of mors liv,” in Symra, 1907, 21. 
* This needs to be stressed in view of the claims made for the lay preachers 
BS in Norway and America. See Osc. Alb. Johnsen, Norges Historie, 
-2, 234. 


56 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Sloop Party; and we have considered the later emigration and fol- 
lowed it out in detail as far as it is necessary, taking into account the 
rival attraction of America and Norway. We have devoted some 
space to a possible solution of why the early Haugeans fell prey to 
the sects. We have spoken of the Fox River type of Lutheran lay 
preacher culminating in Eielsen, and contrasted this with the Mus- 
kego type, trying, finally, to explain the difference. Of this whole 
period it is well to remember that, after all, the settlers were com- 
paratively few in number. Even in these early days the immigrants 
were separating into two Lutheran camps with such fundamentally 
different church tendencies that a conflict was unavoidable. At the 
end of the period from 1825 to the middle of 1843 the lay preachers 
had been found wanting, and the people were ready for the ministry 
of pastors. Had all the lay preachers and their partisans fallen in 
line with this new development, almost three generations of strife 
and conflict could have been avoided. 

The transition from lay to pastoral leadership in the religious 
activities of the settlements is marked by the coming of Clausen to 
Muskego in August, 1843. Clausen’s coming is connected with an- 
other phenomenon which is entirely foreign to the State Church in 
Norway or elsewhere, viz., foreign missionary activity. 

Since foreign missions are not in any way compatible with the 
genius of a State Church, one might easily surmise that this worthy 
movement owed its inception to the independent spirit of the 
Stavangerings, who, in turn, might have gotten the idea from the 
Herrnhuts or the Quakers, although the modern Protestant mis- 
sionary movement is of Lutheran origin. Wherever they got the 
idea, the Stavangerings organized a mission society as early as 18206. 
Enthusiasm for foreign missions spread rapidly among the Haugeans 
as a result of John Haugvaldstad’s untiring effort. Consequently, 
by 1841 sixty local societies for the conversion of the heathen had 
been established throughout Norway. In order to concentrate their 
forces, these were amalgamated on August 8, 1842, into one society 
called “The Norwegian Mission Society.” This society established 
its own school for the education of prospective missionaries and, in 
the short interval between the death of Hersleb and Steenersen and 
the appointment of Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari to pro- 
fessorships of theology at Christiania University, this mission school 
exerted some influence in the absence of strong leadership at the 
university. In 1842 the cause of foreign missions received a power- 
ful impetus from the word and example of a young man, the later 
Bishop Hans Palludan Smith Schreuder. This youth of twenty- 
four, just out of the theological seminary, wrote an epochal mis- 
sionary challenge to the Norwegian Church entitled 4 Few Words 
to the Norwegian Church. This challenge was backed by Schreuder’s 
declaration that he was going out to convert the heathen. William 
Carey's appeal to the English Church hardly made a deeper impres- 
sion on the English people than this made on the Norwegians. These 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 57 


impulses were so powerful that they found their way to a young 
man, Claus Lauritz Clausen, in far-away Denmark. And through 
Clausen and others, this movement to convert the heathen brought 
untold blessings to the children of the Norwegian Church on the 
American continent. 

Claus Lauritz Clausen 25 was born at Aeroe, Denmark, November 
3, 1820. His father, a keeper of a country store, gave his boy a good 
common school education and then sent him to a law school where 
he studied for three years. Much to his father’s disappointment, 
young Clausen abandoned the study of law and took up theology in- 
stead. The immediate cause for this change of plans was the Grundt- 
vigian revival which was sweeping the country, arousing the people 
everywhere to great spiritual activity, especially along the line of 
foreign missions. After two years of theological studies, during 
which time he made his own way by tutoring, Clausen determined to 
go to Norway where he hoped to have the privilege of being sent 
to Zululand, Africa, with Schreuder. When Clausen came to Nor- 
way, however, so many obstacles barred his path that he concluded 
that it was not God’s will that he should go to Africa. His atten- 
tion was soon directed to another quarter. 

In the meantime Clausen had made the acquaintance of Tollef 
Bakke, a pious merchant from Drammen, who was a personal friend 
of Hans Nielsen Hauge and one of Hauge’s staunch supporters.”® 
Tollef Bakke had long been solicitous about the religious instruction 
of his grandchildren, Soren Bakke’s children at Muskego; hence, 
after satisfying himself as to Clausen’s qualifications, he proposed 
that Clausen go to America to teach the children in the Muskego 
settlement the Lutheran fundamentals. So long as there was any 
hope of going to Africa, Clausen would not seriously consider the 
proposal; but when his dreams of going with Schreuder were shat- 
tered, and when, in the meantime, Tollef Bakke had received a man- 
date signed by twenty Muskego settlers to arrange for Clausen’s en- 
gagement as a teacher, Clausen regarded this as a call of God and 
dedicated his life and interests henceforth to the American, instead 
of the African, continent. The young man who had stood with his 
scrip in his hand for so long naturally needed very little time for 
further preparation before his departure for America. He did take 
time, however, to arrange a pesonal matter in Denmark—his mar- 
riage to the noble and lovable Martha F. Rasmussen, the first gra- 
cious occupant of that great spiritual and cultural stronghold in Nor- 
wegian-American church life, the Lutheran parsonage. When Clau- 


* Biographical materials on this notable man can be found in any manual 
on Norwegian American history. 

* The main source for this part of the history of Norwegian American 
Lutheranism is J. W. C. Dietrichson, Reise blandt de norske Emugranter 1 
“De forenede nordamerikanske Fristater,’ Stavanger, 1846. Originals of this 
very rare book are found in the Library of Congress, Koren Library, Luther 
College, Decorah, Iowa, and other places. R. B. Anderson made a reprint of 
it in 1896. 


58 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


sen came to claim his promising young bride, she proved to be a 
brave, devoted, and consecrated Christian who was willing to follow 
the man of her choice to the ends of the world if need be. Though 
America in those days, thanks to the stories set afloat by the anti- 
emigrationists, had a reputation hardly less terrible than Africa it- 
self, this young couple did not flinch in the face of their God-given 
task, but set out bravely on their journey. After suffering the cus- 
tomary hardships of the slow travel of the day, they reached Mus- 
kego on August 8, 1843. 

Clausen, it seems, had come to America to teach, though he pos- 
sibly from the first had anticipated the eventuality of being ordained, 
as he made provisions for a possible ordination both in Norway and 
along the route of his slow travels in America. Here, again, it be- 
came evident that ready-made European solutions do not fit Amer- 
ican situations and problems. In Norway, teaching, backed up as it 
is by the established Lutheran Church, is a profession of great re- 
ligious power and influence: in America, however, teaching, though 
supported by the State, is hardly a profession and perforce is strictly 
neutral on religious issues.2”. The Muskego settlers soon saw that, 
if Clausen were to teach religion, he must do it through support from 
the Church and not from the State. In the meantime, Clausen 
taught in a parochial school, read sermons out of the postils, and, 
possibly, also preached occasionally. On the whole he gave such 
satisfaction that the settlers, who had despaired of getting ordained 
ministers from Norway, issued Clausen a call, signed by sixty-nine 
men, under date of September 13, 1843. Clausen accepted the call 
subject to his ability to fulfil all the requirements (call, examination, 
and ordination) pertaining to a rightly instituted minister of the 
Means of Grace. Having used no unfair means in connection with 
its issuance, he had what he considered a divine call. In the presence 
of A. Hansen, Soren Bakke, and Even Heg—‘the representatives of 
Muskego congregation’—and of representatives of Rev. L. T. E. 
Krause’s congregation at Freystadt, Krause duly examined Claus 
Lauritz Clausen, October 13, 1843, and found him qualified, intel- 
lectually and religiously, for the office of the ministry. On Octo- 
ber 18, 1843, Krause ordained Clausen on the call from ‘‘the Nor- 
wegian evangelical Lutheran congregation in Racine and Milwaukee 
Counties in the assembly of the congregation at Heg, in accordance 
with the Church Ritual of Denmark and Norway.” ?8 

Possibly because there had been so many spurious preachers who 
claimed some sort of ordination, and possibly also on account of the 
influence of Unonius, who was very strong on “orders,” Clausen 
took every precaution to have the validity of his ordination recog- 
nized. Accordingly, he laid the whole sacred transaction before a 
German Lutheran Synod at Milwaukee, which body found the or- 
dination regular and valid in every way. The theological faculty at 
Christiania, Norway, whom he also asked for an opinion in the 

“J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 28. * J. A. Bergh, op cit., 17. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 59 


matter, likewise found it valid, saying that under the extraordinary 
circumstances a man not having had a full theofogical training could 
rightly seek, and be given, ordination. Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, 
who came to Muskego the following year, made a strong point in 
answer to those who challenged the validity of the ordination on 
the ground it had not been performed by a bishop (Unonius?) by 
saying that this did not at all invalidate the ordination since all the 
essential elements—the call, examination, and consecration—were 
undeniably present.” 

From Dietrichson’s hot defense of Clausen one might rightly 
conclude that there were those who still challenged the validity of 
Clausen’s ordination in 1845 when the Reise was written. This re- 
flects quite clearly the churchliness at least of those who with some 
degree of sincerity called the validity of the ordination in question. 
The pastors as a class in Norway were far removed from the aver- 
age man, inasmuch as the average man hardly ever ventured to seek 
either theological instruction or ordination. Class distinction had 
operated so effectively that the clerical office was practically closed 
to those who were not of the “conditioned” office-holding classes. 
Even in “free’’ America the settlers retained some of their aristo- 
cratic ideals, and the psychology of the situation would work against 
the democratic Clausen in his effort to gain recognition as a pastor 
after he had served even a very short time as a teacher. The mere 
accident of ordination was not enough to elevate the merchant’s 
son a great deal above the Muskego leaders, who also were mer- 
chants. His youth and democratic temperament probably made it 
distasteful for Clausen to assume the benevolent despotism which 
generations of the office-holding clergy had made the people accus- 
tomed to in Norway. When, under the leadership of Rev. J. W. C. 
Dietrichson, Clausen did begin to assert certain prerogatives of his 
office, this fitful assertion naturally only aroused opposition. Torn 
between his sympathy and love for his people, and his high conception 
of his sacred office, especially as set forth by Dietrichson, the young 
Clausen did not succeed in injecting a spirit of firmness into his 
work. Under the circumstances, it was impossible to be a democratic 
churchman, as the people easily misunderstood any attempt to bridge 
the gulf existing between clergy and laity; a pastor had to make a 
thoroughgoing assertion of the full prerogatives of his office, or else 
invite trouble. While Clausen might rightly be styled the forerunner 
of a certain type of democratic churchman who was later to become 
very popular, his methods were manifestly out of place at this time 
and perhaps gave the impression that he was timid. On the other 
hand, the Muskego laymen were possibly stronger in the theory of 
church government than in the practice of it; they could observe a 
correct attitude in the absence of a pastor, without fully yielding 
all the prerogatives that his absence had given them. Indeed, it can 
be said both in praise and derogation of Clausen that he was “a 

*J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 28 ff. 


60 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


man of the people’ who, on the one hand, understood the people, 
but, on the other, was a little too ready to yield to public opinion. 
At any rate, Clausen, though far more churchly than [ielsen, was 
not the man to lay the foundation for the organized Norwegian Lu- 
theran church work in the Middle West. 

But his admittedly somewhat weak congregational rule did not 
prevent Clausen from doing some very excellent pastoral work. 
This, indeed, was his strong point, as his mild and winning personal- 
ity made him easily accessible to the mass of the people. He was 
also a very eloquent preacher and made a very good impression 
throughout the various settlements. 

On October 19, 1843, the.day after his ordination, Rev. C. L. 
Clausen conducted the first of fifty-four funerals in a period cover- 
ing the four last months of 1843. This terrible toll of death was 
taken from the small Muskego settlement alone. In the month of 
November there were thirty-two funerals, eight of which were per- 
formed on the same day. On December 17 there were nine, and 
on January I there were seventeen.*® These were the dead; the num- 
ber of the sick ran into the hundreds, and between burying the dead 
and visiting the sick the young pastor of twenty-three years still 
found time for making extended trips to the neighboring settle- 
ments. 

Under this terrific strain Clausen, whose health always was 
delicate, was ably supported by his wife. Besides radiating cheer 
and hope from the congregational hearthstone, she found time to 
gather the children of the immigrants together for religious instruc- 
tion, receiving in return no salary, little gratitude, but much petty 
abuse, and—sometimes—even open hostility.*t. Such were the be- 
ginnings of the parochial summer school system among the Nor- 
wegian Lutherans in America. Out of the bitterness of parting 
with dear ones in the fatherland, or from her loneliness in America, 
was wrung Mrs. Clausen’s beautiful song which shall ever be her 
monument: “And now we must bid one another farewell.” Mrs. 
Clausen’s day, though eventful and full of blessings, was short; she 
died in 1846, the first Norwegian Lutheran pastor’s wife to lay 
down her life in the service of the Master in America. 

Something must be said about the “congregation” at Muskego. No 
formal organization was effected, though the joint action of the 
settlers in sending Clausen a call on September 13, 1843, to admin- 
ister the Means of Grace must be regarded as the beginning of the 
“congregation,” since, as Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, in language that 
needs qualification, observed, “where God’s Word is preached and 
the Sacraments are administered according to the order of the church 
through the rightfully instituted clerical office, there a congregation 
is formed.” The “congregation,” though it had no constitution or 
other forms of organization, must be dated from September 13, 


* J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 17; H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, 15. 
“J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 41. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 6! 


1843, when the sixty-nine met to send a call to Clausen over their 
own names. At a “regular congregational meeting” in November 
the “congregation” voted: 1. That the pastor’s salary for the pres- 
ent should consist of ‘‘voluntary contributions by members of the 
congregation—in money, goods, or work—though always provided 
that one-fourth shall be in money. 2. That the erection of a church 
should be commenced. 3. That the pastor be permitted to visit the 
western settlements, since he for the time being looked upon his 
work as of a missionary character, with Muskego as his base.” All 
unanimously adopted.*” 

Though Clausen’s call already covered “Racine and Milwaukee 
Counties” (see above), it was felt by the time of this meeting in 
November that the “congregation” must share its pastor with the 
“western settlements.” The vague limits set by this latter resolu- 
tion were rapidly being extended, so that Clausen and his fellow- 
pastors traveled thousands of miles in whatever conveyance they 
could commandeer between the settlements that were springing up 
in what is now Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. John 
Wesley himself showed no more zeal than some of these pastors who 
walked, rode on ox wagons and on horseback, swam rivers, and in 
general had numberless experiences that more highly extolled heroes 
would envy them. Though many of the pastors who cast their lot 
with Clausen within the next decade were from the best and most 
aristocratic families of Norway, they speedily adjusted themselves 
to the pioneer standards with a heroism and fortitude that did them 
credit. In spite of their many hardships these rugged pioneer pas- 
tors, most of them, lived to a ripe old age, showing that there must 
have been spiritual—and possibly physical—rewards and returns 
that eased their burdened minds and bodies. Clausen’s health gave 
way after a few years, but by that time he had been relieved of 
bearing the heaviest part of the load, as other men came who not 
only carried on the pastoral and congregational work, but sup- 
plemented this by a type of organized churchmanship which was 
not directly in line with Clausen’s special talents. Clausen was the 
mild and humble pastor, a man of the people, but he was hardly 
capable at this time of perpetuating his labors by laying the broad 
foundations for organized church work; at any rate, he neglected to 
take the initiative in organizing his “congregations” into anything 
that could be called an organic church body which could function 
under the stress of dissension. 

Returning to Elling Eielsen, we find that he had done about the 
last thing we should expect of him: He had been ordained! He 
had not weakened in his vigorous denunciations of the clergy, nor 
can we conceive of Eielsen copying from anyone, least of all from 
Clausen, who, by being called to Muskego, automatically stepped into 
the breach between Eielsen and the Muskego lay preachers. About the 
only reason that can be adduced for this rather strange act on Eielsen’s 

“ Most available source is J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 19. 


62 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


part, is that the same popular sentiment which required that Clausen 
be ordained became too strong for Eielsen also, who, rather than 
be left high and dry, submitted to ordination. This explanation be- 
comes very plausible when we look into the circumstances attending 
Eielsen’s rather abrupt change of front on this point. 

Eielsen met Clausen at the home of Even Heg in August, 1843, 
and though Clausen may have desired to come to an understanding, 
Eielsen was suspicious of a man who was openly friendly toward 
vestments, ritual, churchliness, and the clergy. Under the trees at 
Muskego, back and forth, these men walked in the hush of night 
discussing in serious and subdued tones the issues which were to 
unite or separate thousands of Lutherans. Whatever was said, or 
whoever was to blame, the mild-tempered Clausen and the obdurate 
Eielsen found no basis for agreement, the chief cause for dissension 
being Clausen’s intentions of being ordained.** Eielsen’s opposition 
to the ordained clergy was thus so great in August, 1843, that he, 
mainly for that reason, could not give Clausen the right hand of 
fellowship. 

And yet, not many weeks after the incident at Heg’s home, as 
Clausen was going past the house of Paul Skavlem at Rock Prairie, 
Wisconsin, Eielsen came out to meet him and joyfully remarked that 
he, too, was now ordained. In substantiation of this statement he 
took out a certificate signed by Francis Alex. Hoffman, D.D., “secre- 
tary for the Ministerium of the Lutheran Church of Northern II- 
linois,”’ saying that Eielsen had been ordained on October 3, 1843. 
In the span of the month of September, allowing a few days before 
and after the calendar month, Eielsen had thus not only overcome his 
revulsion for the ministry, but had actually procured what has 
ever since been known as his “ordination.” After examining the 
certificate, Clausen handed it back to Eielsen, saying that it was 
merely a “license.” ** Though the validity of this ordination, first 
called in question by Clausen, has been hotly contested, there seems 
to be no reason for believing that it is invalid or irregular. While 
Ikielsen may have sought ordination in an abrupt manner, and also 
neglected certain elements, as for instance, being carefully examined, 
the essential features of an ordination were satisfactorily observed. 

Naturally, if even Clausen’s carefully planned ordination was not 
above attack, what occasion did not Fielsen’s characteristically “‘in- 
formal” ordination give for tongues to wag? Not only did those 
who knew Eielsen’s attitude toward the clergy question his motives, 
but his disregard of the proper formalities in connection with the 
transaction gave the many others whom Eielsen had offended in one 
way or another occasion to attack the very validity of the ordination. 
Thus Clausen, even to his dying day, regarded himself as the first 
ordained Norwegian Lutheran pastor in America,*® a preposterous 


* For this meeting, and Eielsen’s opposition to Clausen on the score he was 
to be ordained, see Bergh, op. cit., 22. 
* J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 22. *° [bid., 21. 


NEW TYPE OF IMMIGRANT—ADVENT OF PASTORS 63 


claim if he had recognized Eielsen’s ordination, which took place 
October 3, 1843, a fortnight before his own, which took place Oc- 
tober 18, 1843. All Eielsen was to Clausen was a “licensed” lay 
preacher who had gone through a certain form of. licensing at the 
hands of Dr. Francis Alex. Hoffman. In spite of FEielsen’s trans- 
actions with Dr. Hoffman, Clausen stoutly held that by the end of 
1843 there was only one Norwegian Lutheran pastor in America. 

Conceding the validity of Eielsen’s ordination, we thus find that 
both Muskego and Fox River had now abandoned the lay system 
and each had ordained a lay preacher out of its own midst to serve 
as pastor. 


GEA PILE RYEY, 
DIETRICHSON—-KOSH KONONG 


WE have traced Norwegian Lutheranism through its early cen- 
ters in America, stressing especially Fox River and Muskego. While 
Muskego represents a notable advance over Fox River in the point 
of churchliness and general friendliness toward the clerical class, 
Muskego was not able to assume the leadership in the great task 
of organizing Norwegian Lutheranism in America. This responsi- 
bility was largely assumed by Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, who made 
Koshkonong his headquarters. 

On the whole, the people, though often abusing the liberties that 
they were supposed to have in ‘free’ America, responded quite 
heartily to the efforts of Rev. and Mrs. C. L. Clausen. At the same 
time that Clausen had great difficulty in enforcing discipline at Mus- 
kego “according to the Church Ritual of Denmark and Norway,” ? 
the people out in the settlements valued services such as his so highly 
that four of these—Rock Prairie, Jefferson Prairie, Rock Run, and 
Hamilton—in February, 1844, sent a joint letter to Bishop Sorenson 
of Christiania, Norway, asking him to send them a suitable pastor.’ 
The settlements pledged themselves to pay three hundred dollars a 
year, plus three annual offerings and the use of eighty acres of 
land. In July, 1844, the bishop replied that he had ordained a 
young man (on February 26, 1844) and that this young man had 
left for America before their letter reached the bishop. Thus it 
happened that Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson came to America without 
a call to a definite place, and that on his arrival here, he chose Kosh- 
konong instead of these four settlements as the headquarters for 
his activity. 

On the surface of it, it might appear as though the State Church, 
through its bishop, was sending help to its emigrated children. Far 
from it. Though there were many theological candidates who were 
without parishes in Norway at this time,’ they had no thought of go- 
ing to America, for the members of the clergy in general looked 
askance at emigration, the more unsympathetic of them possibly feel- 
ing that no great harm would result if the emigrants suffered from 
their self-willed acts. In 1846 Dietrichson reproved this attitude in 


*J. W. C. Dietrichson, Reise, 39. 
2 Ibid., Reise, 81. 
°Th. Bothne, “Eielsen” in Kort Udsigt, 831. 


64 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 65 


the State Church of Norway.* Not until a new generation of pastors 
was produced under the inspiration of the great-hearted professors, 
Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari, did any marked change take 
place in the attitude of the members of the clergy toward America. 

In view of this general antipathy of the members of the clergy 
to emigration and the emigrants, it becomes increasingly strange that 
Dietrichson, an aristocrat and a stickler for form and churchly 
authority, should get the idea that he wanted to go to America. 
With characteristic energy and independence, he followed an im- 
pulse from Grundtvigian sources and determined to do the very 
unusual thing: go to America to bring order in the church affairs of 
his countrymen here. This man, with his very great and strong 
qualities and his corresponding weaknesses, deserves our attention 
for a moment. 

John Wilhelm Christian Dietrichson, born April 4, 1815, was the 
son of Captain Dietrichson, at that time stationed at Fredrikstad, 
Norway, but later transferred to Stavanger. Originally from Hol- 
stein, the Dietrichson family, from which have sprung many out- 
standing men in the army and the church, came to Norway in the 
“Danish times’ and hence belonged strictly to the aristocratic ‘“con- 
ditioned” class of office-holders. The outstanding characteristics of 
the family were their hot temper, overbearing, almost brutal, severity, 
and their inveterate lordliness. Upon Captain Dietrichson devolved 
the task of quelling the disturbances at Stavanger, and this he did 
with such great severity that he created many of the deep-seated 
antipathies that we have met with at Fox River. Young Wilhelm, 
being greatly impressed during his period of confirmation instruc- 
tion under the pious Rev. J. Tandberg, took up the study of theology 
and received his degree in 1837. Two years later he married Jorgine 
Brock, but had the sorrow of losing her after a short time. This 
severe blow deepened his religious convictions, and Dietrichson now 
took up the study of the works of the great Danish religious leader, 
N. F. S. Grundtvig, with a great deal of earnestness. Though not 
committed to Grundtvig’s more offensive aberrations, he did fall 
into several of the errors that Johnson and Caspari attacked so vig- 
orously in the fifties. Dietrichson’s Grundtvigianism was not to go 
unchallenged on American soil any less than Clausen’s same ten- 
dencies. 

Although it 1s somewhat generally true, as Th. Bothne says, that 
the Norwegians were more concerned about the salvation of the 
heathen than of people of their own flesh and blood, there were, 
thank God, some notable exceptions. We have noticed that, in- 
spired by Schreuder’s ringing appeal in behalf of the heathen, Tollef 
Bakke, merchant at Drammen, had gotten the idea that he should 


* Reise, 114. 

* For biographical materials see any manual on early Norwegian American 
Lutheranism. J. A. Bergh is not very sympathetic, though fair enough. Th. 
Bothne, whom we shall follow, is more sympathetic. 


66 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


send Claus Lauritz Clausen to America to instruct his grandchildren 
in the Christian fundamentals. At Christiania, P. Sorensen, a 
dyer, had been similarly inspired, and he was discussing the religious 
plight of his countrymen in America with the young candidate of 
theology, J. W. C. Dietrichson, when the question arose: Did not 
Dietrichson feel called to go to America to lay the foundations for a 
permanent church order among the emigrants? If so, Sorensen would 
scrape together the money from his small income and pay all the 
expenses of the trip.’ Greatly touched by this really great sacrifice, 
the young candidate, after duly consulting his ecclesiastical superiors, 
decided to accept this as a call from God. His application for ordina- 
tion was granted by the king under date of October 12, 1843, and, 
as mentioned above, he was ordained by Bishop Sorensen, February 
26, 1844, at Oslo church. 

Assured of his divine call, he set out for America, May 21, 1844, 
landed in New York, July 9, together with about one hundred emi- 
grants, and, after making fairly good time according to the stand- 
ards of travel of the day, he came to Milwaukee on August 5. On 
board ship he preached for the people and conducted school for the 
children. At New York he preached for some Norwegians and 
Swedes in a German Lutheran church. At Buffalo he preached in 
the German language to Rev. J. A. A. Grabau’s congregation. From 
Milwaukee, the son of dancing master Hanson took him the twenty 
miles out to Muskego, where he immediately sought out Rev. C. L. 
Clausen. With Muskego as his temporary base, he set out to fulfil 
what he considered his mission in America: “To get information 
about the religious needs of the emigrated Norwegians, and to at- 
tempt to institute church order among them.’’ ‘Dietrichson set out 
alone and came to the settlements on Koshkonong Prairies, fifty 
miles west of Muskego. This colony comprised five separate settle- 
ments, of which four were in Dane County and the fifth was in 
Jefferson County—consequently quite near Madison, Wisconsin. 
Most of the seven or eight hundred settlers (1846) were from Tele- 
marken, Numedal, Vos, and Sogndal, a fact worth noting in view 
of the distinction already drawn between these and the early Stavan- 
gerings at Fox River. 

Out in Amund Endresen Hornefjeld’s barn at Koshkonong he 
preached his two first sermons, using as the text for the first of 
these the words from Rev. iii.11: ‘Behold, I come quickly, hold 
fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown.” Under an 
oak, now marked by a stone, he had his third service, at which he 
administered the Sacrament of the Altar to sixty persons. The text 
for the preparatory address was from Psalms Ixxviii. 19: “Can God 
prepare a table in the wilderness?” ‘These impressive services over, 
the people requested Dietrichson to remain as their pastor, but he 
felt he must make further investigations before he could act in the 
matter. After an extended trip throughout the settlements, he de- 

* See above, 57. "J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 3 ff. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 67 


cided that Koshkonong Prairies were, on account of the size of the 
settlements and their central location, the most suitable base for his 
further activities. Dietrichson, an aristocrat of the aristocrats both 
as to family and temperament, cheerfully took up his abode in a 
small one-roomed log hut belonging to one of the Koshkonong 
settlers. From this spiritual palace he set about to order and rule 
the whole realm of Norwegian American Lutheranism. 

Even before he was thus established, Dietrichson took stock of 
the other Norwegian pastors in America at the time,® to find out 
in how far he, the representative of the Norwegian State Church, 
could accept their ordinations as “legitimate.” Clausen had no 
trouble on the score of “‘legitimation,” and found in Dietrichson a 
warm defender against those who challenged the ordination, particu- 
larly because it had not been performed by a bishop. Clausen and 
Dietrichson were both at least mild Grundtvigians and they shared 
certain ideas on church government, which Clausen heretofore had 
not been able to put into practice. The dominating Dietrichson had 
no great difficulty in making Clausen fall in line with him, which, 
of course, was a guarantee that there would be peace in that quarter. 

Not so with Eielsen. Here was a clash of extremes both in point 

of personal positiveness and in point of class pride and ideas of 
church government. Eielsen was extremely low-churchly in his 
ideas, bordering very nearly on Quakerism; Dietrichson was ex- 
tremely high-churchly, bordering on high-church Episcopalianism. 
Fielsen was of the lower classes, who, under Ole Gabriel Ueland, 
had taken up the fight against the “conditioned’’ office-holding classes ; 
Dietrichson was an extreme aristocrat with inborn ideas of the 
rights of his class. No wonder, then, that a clash had to take place 
between these two who represented the extremes of all the bitter 
antagonisms both in Church and State in Norway. 
It did not take long for them to find grounds for a very bitter 
and unseemly quarrel. Naturally, if they wanted to quarrel, Eielsen’s 
ordination was as convenient a subject as any. Ejielsen resented the 
idea that he had to “legitimate” himself before Dietrichson, as 
though Dietrichson were a Norwegian bishop.? After a very violent 
collision on this point, Dietrichson set about to prove that Eielsen’s 
ordination was irregular on at least two points: on the call, and on the 
examination. If these fall, then the third, the consecration, must 
also fall. 

Dietrichson pounced on the lone testimony of Christen Olson 
Hole (?), whose name he wrote with a question mark, to the effect 
that Eielsen had “stolen” the names on the list purporting to be 
Fielsen’s call, since they were gotten under false pretenses. Much 
as Eielsen might have sinned in this connection, we owe it to him 
to make the following observations: 1. Dietrichson cited only one 
witness; he should have been able to find more. Other signers 

* Ibid., 27 ff. 

* Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 65. 


68 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


of the list actually regarded Fielsen as their “called” pastor and ac- 
cepted his services as such. 2. Dietrichson added a question mark 
after the name of his lone witness, evidently being uncertain about 
his name. He could not vouch for his character, seeing he could 
have known the man, at most, only for the short period of his first 
stay in America from August, 1844, to May, 1845. 3. Dietrichson 
was too anxious to find substantiation of former statements which 
he published in Norway about Eielsen, and to which influential 
Haugeans had taken exception. 4. Quite a few of the other charges 
against Eielsen’s character and doctrine were petty, showing that 
Dietrichson’s judgment on this point might have been influenced by 
his evident dislike for Eielsen. That Eielsen might have brought 
this attack upon himself should hot blind us to his possible rights 
in the case. So much for Dietrichson. Some years later, Rev. 
H. A. Preus, convinced that Eielsen had not been rightly called, 
came to the conclusion that Eielsen’s ordination was not valid, quot- 
ing the Lutheran maxim that “it is the call that makes the pastor.” 1° 
Possibly from the same premises, Rev. P. A. Rasmussen, for a time 
one of Eielsen’s supporters, declared at the meeting in Rock Prairie, 
Wisconsin, in 1858, that he had his doubts as to the validity of Eiel- 
sen’s ordination. The objection to the call, however, is not of 
great importance when we consider that there were those who had 
signed the list with the intention of calling Eielsen and had firmly 
adhered to this intention. 

As for the examination, it was a distinctly humorous situation 
when the well-trained Dietrichson asked the relatively untutored 
Iielsen about his examination. To this question Eielsen replied 
that he had had a better examination than either Clausen or Diet- 
richson, inasmuch as he had been “tried as a Christian, tried under 
persecution, wakefulness, nakedness, and hunger’’—in short, an apos- 
tolic trial by fire, as Dietrichson observes.’* Possibly Rev. Francis 
Alex. Hoffman, D.D., had given Eielsen some sort of examination. 
That Hoffman later left the ministry and took up banking '* has 
not been seriously advanced against the validity of the ordination, 
as that would have involved the accusants in Donatism. Setting 
aside entirely Eielsen’s certificate of ordination, which both Dietrich- 
son and Clausen had seen,'* the pastors repeatedly asserted Fielsen 
had no proof of his ordination. Rev. H. A. Preus declared that his 
ordination could easily be acknowledged if Eielsen had not been a 
false teacher and the fomenter of an erring sect.1® 

But Eielsen could not be disposed of merely because Dietrichson 
read him out of the ministry. Eielsen went right into the midst of 


ats A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika, 23. 
“ Tbid., 100. 


“J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 31. 
_ “H. A. Preus, Syuv Foredrag over de Kirkelige Forhold blandt de Norske 
t Amerika, 83. 
1 bee Bergh, op. cit., 21, for Clausen; and Reise, 31, for Dietrichson. 
*H. A. Preus, Syv Foredrag, 83. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 69 


the parochial limits of his fellow-pastors and in true sectarian fashion 
established congregations for his followers, whom he called ours. 
These Ellingians, as one of them said, were extremely censorious, 
being prone to adjudge “ours” the heirs of life, while the others, 
“the great mass’ (den store hob), could be given no such hope.?® 
Kielsen and his associates carried on a most violent propaganda 
against the “dead,” “blind,” “priest-ridden,”’ “State Church,” “mass” 
Christianity of the congregations served by the other pastors. The 
fight was thus carried on in a very unrestrained manner on both sides. 
What had been brewing between Muskego and Fox River had now 
come to a most violent eruption through the inevitable clash be- 
tween these extremes. Fox River and Koshkonong henceforth are 
the antipodes, with Muskego leaning strongly toward Koshkonong. 

This conflict with Eielsen by no means distracted Dietrichson’s 
attention from his main mission in America. Appraising the situa- 
tion with the eye of a master strategist, he at once saw that he had 
to force the people to declare themselves for or against the Nor- 
wegian Lutheran Church and its church order; just what form this 
declaration should take, however, he could not so readily see. After 
due deliberation he finally determined upon these four conditions 
for membership: 


I. Do you desire to become a member of the Norwegian Lutheran 
congregation at this place? 

2. Will you to that end subject yourself to the church order that 
the Ritual of the Church of Norway prescribes? 

3. Will you promise that you shall not call or accept any other 
minister and pastor than such as can clearly establish according to 
the Norwegian Lutheran Church Order that he is a regularly called 
and rightly consecrated pastor? And will you show the pastor thus 
called by you and the congregation to spiritual rulership the atten- 
tion and obedience that a member of a congregation owes his pastor 
in all things that he requires and does according to the Ritual of the 
Church of Norway? 

4. Will you, by signing your name or by permitting it to be 
signed, here make acknowledgment that you have joined the congre- 
gation on the above-named conditions ? “ 


His reasons for binding the people to the regulations of the 
Church of Norway were: 1. To reclaim to a definite stand the be- 
wildered and sect-ridden people who all nominally were, or had been, 
members of the Norwegian Lutheran Church. 2. To place before 
these people, who were at liberty to order their religious affairs in 
whatever form they thought best, a definite and tried form of church 
government. 3. To facilitate the transfer of pastors ordained in 
Norway, hence pledged to the Ritual of Denmark and Norway, to 
the American Lutheran Church. 4. To insure to those who valued 
the Church of Norway, its ritual and history, an unbroken continuity 


** Bergh, op. cit., 59. J. W. C. Dietrichson, Reise, 45. 


70 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


of this Church upon American soil."* Apropos of the third condition, 
the real causes for the fearful religious disorders among the immi- 
grants were, to his mind, the unclear ideas of the immigrants regard- 
ing the call, examination, and consecration of candidates for the 
holy ministry, the immigrants, in the absence of regularly ordained 
clergy, having accepted self-instituted ministers who further con- 
fused their ideas on these points. Similarly, in connection with the 
third condition, Dietrichson explained that, though a pastor is the 
servant of the congregation, he must, not in a papistic, but apostolic 
manner, demand the obedience due him as a spiritual ruler accord- 
ing to the words: “Obey them that have rule over you” (Heb. xiii. 
17). As to the fourth question, the pastor might find it necessary in 
the case of the immigrants—who, to Dietrichson’s mind, had ideas of 
unbridled liberties—to have definite pledges, voluntarily assumed, to 
fall back on in times of strife.?® 

On the whole, Dietrichson’s four points were well taken. Here 
was a man who presumed to exercise the benevolent rule that the 
immigrants were accustomed to in Norway; and, since they neces- 
sarily did not know Dietrichson’s extreme tendencies along this line, 
they accepted the rule with enthusiasm. The definiteness of the pro- 
gram appealed to the solid churchly element which was now growing 
in numbers and importance. His third condition, though unnecessary 
and trite in our day when it is quite generally acknowledged but not 
always observed, was of utmost importance at a time when innumer- 
able traveling Ellingian lay preachers and sectarian “missionaries” — 
mostly Scandinavian converts to the Mormons, Mennonites, Baptists, 
Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians—were harassing the 
Norwegian Lutheran clergy as the worst foes to their own projects. 
Dietrichson, at this time twenty-nine years old, showed marked abil- 
ity not only in garnering data from Clausen and the settlers, but 
also in analyzing the situation, thereby enabling himself, with his in- 
born military talent, to meet the situation squarely by the proper 
counter moves. 

Having decided upon his course of action, he was not slow in 
executing his plans. On October 10, 1844, on the basis of his four 
points, he organized forty families in the eastern part of the Kosh- 
konong settlements into a congregation. Three days later he organ- 
ized thirty families in the western part of the settlement in the same 
way. These two congregations joined in electing Ole Knudsen Tro- 
vatten as forsanger *® and eight pastor’s assistants or deacons, four 
from East and four from West Koshkonong. In view of his more 
important office, the forsanger was bound by oath to the Ritual of the 
Church of Denmark and Norway, while the eight assistants, after 
being duly instructed as to their duties from Pontoppidan’s Collegium 
Pastorale, signified by affirmation their sincere intention of fulfilling 

* Tbid., 46. 

* Ibid., 47. 

” Forsanger, literally foresinger, one who “sings ahead.” See below, 8o. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 71 


these duties.22_ That Trovatten was a man of both education and 
consecration is seen from the fact that he was engaged to teach three 
months of parochial school in 1845 at a salary of ten dollars a month. 

Parallel with this preparatory work at Koshkonong went the or- 
ganizing activities in other settlements in Wisconsin and_ Illinois. 
As noted above, the settlers at Hamilton, Rock Prairie, Jefferson 
Prairie (Wisconsin), and Rock Run (Illinois) had written to Bishop 
Sorensen at Oslo to get a pastor.2* To show their earnestness in 
the matter, they instructed their secretary, Knud Knudsen, to 
promise incidentals, eighty acres of land, and three hundred dollars 
a year for five years, a truly princely sum for these pioneers to raise. 
On his second visit to this settlement in the fall of 1844, Dietrichson 
organized them into a congregation on the basis of his four points, 
exactly as at Koshkonong. or the time being these were to be 
annexes to the congregations at Koshkonong. ‘This arrangement 
lasted about a year in the case of the Luther Valley congregation in 
the Rock Prairie settlement. The latter congregation repeated, by 
a formal call to Rev. C. L. Clausen, what it virtually had asked of 
him orally: that he come to serve them as their resident pastor. 
Clausen had discouraged the settlers from calling him on his first 
trip to them in February, 1844, on the ground that he had been sent 
by T. O. Bakke to Muskego, and had referred them to the Bishop 
of Oslo. When, under date of December 29, 1845, he received the 
formal call from the Rock Prairie settlers, now duly organized by 
Dietrichson into the Luther Valley congregation, he accepted the ° 
call, March 9, 1846, as he despaired of being able to command the 
respect and obedience due him as a minister of the Gospel at Mus- 
kego.2* The former congregation henceforth had its own pastor 
and, like the other congregations, grew rapidly, numbering two 
hundred and ninety souls by the first Sunday in Advent, 1846. It 
built its own church in 1846-47.74 

While Clausen was still pastor at Muskego, he and Dietrichson 
organized a number of other congregations which were joined either 
to Koshkonong or to Muskego. Some of these were: Skoponong, 
Milwaukee, Rock Ground settlement in Stephenson and Winnebago 
Counties (Illinois), Long Prairie (Illinois), and Chicago,” all of 
which were organized within a year. 

We have reserved the account of the Rock River settlement to 
the last, as this is interesting from the point of view of ethics as 
well as of method. Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson refrained from going 


“J. W. C. Dietrichson, op. cit., 47. 

Pu lUsd,, OL. 

* His almost heartbroken letter to Dietrichson while the latter was in 
Norway gives a glimpse of the great difficulties he had in enforcing the disci- 
plinary measures which, through Dietrichson’s potent influence, he deemed 
absolutely essential. See App. to Dietrichson, op. cit. 

“H. Halvorsen, Festskrift til Den norske Synodes Jubilaeum 1853-1903, 


BAst35. 
% Ibid., 35. 


72 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


down there until toward the close of his first stay in America, be- 
cause he had heard that the Norwegians at Rock River, together 
with the settlers at Pine Lake, had joined the Episcopal Church. 
Unonius, possibly himself misled because of his youth, had repeated 
with some success the old contention that had swept numberless 
Swedes and even great portions of the General Lutheran Synod * 
into the Episcopal Church: “The Episcopalian and Lutheran 
Churches are almost exactly the same.” Though Dietrichson was not 
a man to be similarly misled, he still had the characteristic Lutheran 
view of denominational ethics, and refused to go to Rock River out of 
respect for the (questionable) parochial rights of the Episcopalians. 
Not until assured repeatedly both orally and in writing that the 
people had not joined, nor intended to join, the Episcopal Church, 
did he go down there in February, 1845. As could be expected, he 
thoroughly expounded the difference between the Lutheran and the 
Episcopalian Churches, with the result that all but four families sub- 
scribed to his four points and became an annex congregation to 
Koshkonong.?? 

At this point, when the settlements had accepted or were about to 
accept his four points, Dietrichson’s work in America had actually 
been accomplished, since he had been called “To get information about 
the religious needs of the emigrated Norwegians, and to attempt to 
institute church order among them.” Both parts of this dual pro- 
gram had now been carried out with a courage and insight which 
did this young stranger to American needs and conditions great 
credit. Besides organizing these congregations, he performed an 
enormous amount of pastoral work and, on the whole, was the spirit- 
ual fa’r, “fa(the)r,” to the immigrants in Wisconsin and Illinois. 

But he could not immediately leave these new-born spiritual 
organisms. Though he had seen them breathe and heard them wail, 
he had yet to help them to perform the sterner functions of life. 
Accordingly, he notified the Koshkonong congregations that his call 
had expired and that it was up to the congregations to decide what 
should be done in regard to calling and supporting a pastor in their 
midst. At the meeting of the congregations on February 2, 1845, 
the forsanger and the deacons were delegated to draw up the con- 
ditions upon which a pastor should be called, and to prepare a letter 
of call to be issued when the conditions were agreed upon by the 
congregation. Dietrichson took no part in the work of the com- 
mittee until it became evident that they could neither agree among 
themselves nor get the congregation to accept any one of the various 
proposals.?® With the pastor’s help a document was drawn up by 
the above-named committee in which Dietrichson’s organization of 
the congregation is described, adherence to the four points reaffirmed, 


* See J. L. Neve, A Brief History of the Lutheran Church in America, 85. 

* Dietrichson, op. cit., 70. Unonius later moved to Chicago and finally 
returned to Sweden. 

* Reise, 50. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 73 


and, finally, the proposed financial support of the pastor given in 
detail. Since these details shed some light on Norwegian Lutheran 
usage and upon the conditions at the time, we shall summarize 
them:° 1. The pastor is to have the use of forty acres of land, 
upon which the congregations shall build him a residence with one 
large and two small rooms and a kitchen ; ten acres of the land are to 
be fenced and plowed. 2. For at least five years the pastor shall 
receive three hundred dollars, payable three times a year. 3. Those 
requiring special ministerial service—as at the churching of mothers, 
baptism of children, confirmation of the youth, solemnization of mar- 
riage, officiating at funerals—shall give the pastor whatever they 
deem proper. 4. Voluntary offerings shall be given the pastor on 
the three major church festivals: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. 
The report goes on to say that the expenses accruing from these 
provisions shall be apportioned according to “fair share” by the 
“eight men elected by us for this purpose.” *° It was further de- 
cided that the congregations extend a call upon these conditions to 
Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson.§4 Since the catalog of virtues ascribed 
to Dietrichson at his call to Koshkonong is verbatim the same as 
that ascribed nine months later to Clausen at the latter’s call to Luther 
Valley (December 31, 1845), the same person might have been the 
author of both. Most likely both were copied from some manual, 
possibly Pontoppidan’s Collegium Pastorale. 

More striking than the interesting deliberations of a meeting that 
perforce has great intrinsic interest as being the first congregational 
meeting of the first congregations formally organized, is the sig- 
nificant fact that to this document two hundred and twenty-seven men 
signed their names.** At that, some—among them a Swedish noble- 
man whose motion was defeated—were not willing to accept the con- 
sequences of the open discussions of a “free church” (as opposed 
to State Church), but left the meeting without signing their names. 
At the time of Dietrichson’s departure for Norway in May, 1845, 
the Koshkonong congregations numbered five hundred and seventy- 
five souls. Thus the congregations, a fair beginning of seventy fam- 
ilies at their organization on October 10-13, 1844, had grown into a 
powerful spiritual organization that was soon to be able to bear 
quite heavy burdens. 

Under date of March 3, 1845, these congregations issued a call 
to Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, the same two hundred and twenty- 


Lod. 51: 


*” Are the “eight men” the deacons, or shall a second group of eight be 
elected? The text is not clear, but it is quite certain that Dietrichson divided 
the spiritual and material functions in the Spring Prairie congregation, organ- 
ized in 1847, so that the deacons took charge of the former, and the trustees, 
or forstandere, took charge of the latter. He is perhaps himself not yet clear 
on this point. See Reise, 52. 

= For the text of these conditions see Reise, 50. 

“ Reise, 52. These names are given by G. T. Flom in A History of the 
Norwegian Immigration to the United States, 314, 


74 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


seven signing their names. But Dietrichson, in the loneliness of his 
one-roomed log hut, had begun to yearn for the comforts of “home 
and, though there were many capable homemakers in Wisconsin and 
Illinois even in those days, it never occurred to this aristocrat that 
he could marry anyone who was not of his well-defined station and 
dignity. This meant that he had to go to Norway for a bride, as the 
aristocratic upper classes had not yet begun to emigrate.*® In an- 
swer to the call, therefore, he promised that, in case no other quali- 
fied pastor could be prevailed upon to come to America in his 
place, he would make the proper arrangements in Norway for a 
long stay in America, and return to Koshkonong and serve as 
pastor. With these matters thus tentatively disposed of, and having 
arranged with Clausen to serve the congregation for the time being, 
he left for Norway in May, 1845. 

Elling Eielsen likewise had been extremely busy in the years be- 
tween 1843 and 1845. The possessor of an iron will and a consti- 
tution insensible to hardships, he set out on foot at four o'clock in 
the morning with his kit containing an axe and a few camping uten- 
sils slung over his back,?4 and in this fashion he traveled far and 
wide among the settlements. His extensive travels throughout the 
years took him through the Northwest States, to Missouri, and even 
as far as Texas.2® Wherever he went, he conducted his ultra-in- 
formal services; and, though the settlers missed the accustomed 
order of the service, Eielsen brought the essence of the Gospel to 
many districts to which the other pastors did not penetrate. On ac- 
count of his demands for a certain kind of Christianity and his 
rigorous requirements even in the details of demeanor in prayer 
and Christian conduct generally, his appeal could not reach a very 
wide circle. On the other hand, those he won embraced his whole 
system—Eielsen would tolerate nothing less from ours—with a vigor 
and zeal that made up in intensity what Elling lost in extensity. 

Being the extreme opposite of Dietrichson in this as in so many 
points, Eielsen deemed it sufficient to gather ours (i.e. his followers) 
about the Word of God, without bothering about such claptrap as 
organization. His adherents were bound together by common in- 
terests, and whatever business they might have to transact was 
transacted in any sort of way. In a small group this was possible, 
particularly so long as all would submit to Eielsen’s dictates in mat- 
ters pertaining to the common weal. But Eielsen was making at this 
time (1843-1846) at least two converts, Paul Anderson and Ole 
Andrewsen, who would not submit very long to his arbitrary methods. 
Within a very short time this insistent demand for constitutional 
safeguards was destined to prevail; as yet, however, Eielsen dis- 


“Th. Bothne, op. cit., 840 ff. 

“ Bergh, op. cit., 23. Bothne, op. cit., 833 ff. 

* R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, 411; and 
E. O. Morstad, Elling Eielsen og den “Evangelisk-lutherske Kirke” i Amerika, 
209. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 76 


dained all this fussy machinery set up by the “learned” pastors, of 
whom, he was proud to say, he was not one. 

While in Norway, Dietrichson traveled extensively and bespoke the 
cause of his American congregations most warmly. Not content with 
this and with the numerous articles he wrote for the secular press, 
he published a more pretentious volume setting forth the conditions 
and needs of the emigrated children of the Church of Norway. This 
work bore the long title: Reise blandt de norske emigranter 1 “de 
forenede nord-amerikanske fristater.”** This fervent missionary 
appeal to the Mother Church met with some immediate response in 
the form of small donations; *" but its real fruits were borne later 
when it brought over to America some of the most brilliant of the 
young Norwegian theologians. It was not to be expected that the 
clergy’s deep-seated prejudices against the whole business of emi- 
gration should be wiped out at once. At any rate, Dietrichson’s ap- 
peal in the secular press to the clergy of Norway to send one of their 
number over to America in his place went unheeded. Consequently, 
after having wooed and won a Norwegian lady of suitable rank, he 
returned to America in the summer of 1846. From now on, he 
served, not as the representative of the Church of Norway, but on 
a call from the Norwegian American Lutheran congregations at 
Koshkonong. The first step in the long march of events which re- 
sulted in the complete independence of the Norwegian American 
Lutheran church from the Church of Norway was taken when these 
congregations in America were thus left to shift for themselves. Aid 
was still forthcoming from Norway, to be sure, and without this aid 
one can only surmise what would have happened; and yet the congre- 
gations, which were forced to stand on their own feet at this time, ac- 
quired an independence in other matters also, greatly to the vexa- 
tion of the Mother Church later. 

Possibly it was a realization of the fact that the Norwegian Amer- 
ican Lutheran church had to work out its own destiny that made 
Dietrichson take hold of the task of organizing congregations with 
more energy than ever before. Shortly after his return to America 
in the summer of 1846, he underwent a marked development in his 
ideas of what a congregational constitution ought to be. His ac- 
tivities at Spring Prairie are most illuminating on this point. 

Early in January, 1847, he visited the settlers at Spring Prairie 
and adjacent points, and on March 27, 1847, he organized them into 
congregations on the basis of his four points. A little over two 
years later, on October 15, 1849, three congregations—Spring Prairie, 
Bonnet Prairie, and Norway Grove—were organized into a main, or 

* That is: Travels among the Norwegian Emigrants in “the United North 
American Free States.’ This valuable source-book on early Norwegian 
American history was published by L. C. Kjelland, Stavanger, Norway, 1846, 
and reprinted by R. B. Anderson, Madison, Wis., in 1896. Quite full excerpts 
are found in H. Halvorsen, Festskrift. 


“E, g. $30. for Trovatten for teaching three months of parochial school. 
See Reise, App. 


76 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


capital, congregation for the purpose of calling a pastor. The con- 
stitution that Dietrichson on this occasion wrote for these congrega- 
tions not only represents his own full-blown development, but it 
embraces the main elements of later congregational constitutions in 
the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. A document of such 
great importance deserves at least careful and respectful reading: 


Prompted by a fervent longing also in this strange land to hold 
fast to the true saving doctrine and edifying church order of the 
church of our fatherland, we Norwegian settlers in and about Spring 
Prairie in Dane and Columbia counties in Wisconsin in North 
America have decided to form a Norwegian Luthern congregation, 
and have for that purpose’in October, 1849, asked Rev. J. W. C. 
Dietrichson to order our church affairs for us. We are thus agreed 
concerning the following regulations in regard to our church order: 

I. The name of the congregation shall be: The Norwegian 
Lutheran Congregation at Spring Prairie. 

2. The doctrine of the congregation shall always be that which 
is revealed in God’s holy Word through our baptismal covenant ™ 
and in canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, interpreted 
according to our Church’s Symbolical or Confessional Writings. 

3. Ceremonies, or the outward acts of worship, as well as the 
church order in the congregation, shall be carried out according to 
the Ritual of the Church of Denmark and Norway of 1685 and 
according to the Altar Book prescribed by the said kingdoms, yet in 
such form as the changed conditions in this country may necessitate. 

4. The spiritual affairs of the congregation are administered by 
a congregational board, consisting of the pastor’s assistants in the 
congregation. These assistants are appointed, as often as the pastor 
deems it necessary, by plurality vote of the congregation members 
and are inducted into office by the pastor in accordance with the 
rules prescribed in the Church of Norway, with such modifications 
as the pastor may decide upon. 

5. The secular affairs of the congregation are administered by 
the board of trustees elected by the congregation in compliance with 
the law of February, 1847. 

6. The congregation must not call or use as pastor anyone not 
rightly called and ordained according to the rules prescribed by the 
Church of Norway. 

7. The congregation is in duty bound to show their rightly called 
pastor attention and obedience in all things that the pastor demands 
and does in accordance with God’s Word and our church order, 
and the esteem and respect due a servant of the Lord, according to 
the admonition of the Apostle, “Obey them that have rule over you.” 

8. Since we as Christians know the Lord’s command, that they 
who preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel, and are also heartily 
willing to obey this Word of the Lord, we determine upon the follow- 
ing conditions in regard to the pastor’s salary: 

[Litera (a), (b), (c), and (d) are repetitions of financial provi- 
sions given above, 73. | 


* Through our baptismal covenant is a touch of Grundtvigianism later 
eradicated by Dietrichson’s successors. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 77 


That we, the undersigned members of the Norwegian Lutheran 
Congregation at Spring Prairie, submit ourselves in every particular 
to the above-mentioned conditions and pledge ourselves to fulfil 
them, we acknowledge by signing our names or by permitting them 
to be signed. 

The Norwegian Lutheran Congregation at Spring Prairie in Dane 
and Columbia Counties in the State of Wisconsin in North America, 
the 15th day of October, 1849.” 


This document was signed by one hundred and forty-three men. 

This constitution has both its strong and its weak points. In 
regard to its doctrinal position, it is remarkably complete, being 
placed squarely upon the Word of God and the Confessional Writ- 
ings of the Lutheran Church. It designated the name of the con- 
gregation and provided officials for the execution of its corporate 
will. Proper restrictions were made in regard to the calling of the 
pastor, with rules and regulations for his conduct of worship and the 
performance of the other duties of his office. The congregation is 
duly reminded of its duty to obey the pastor when he speaks in 
virtue of his office, and to provide him a decent living. On the other 
hand, the constitution was tinged with Grundtvigianism: it did not 
provide for congregational meetings ; it was not specific in regard to 
eligibility for membership; it did not specify how discipline was to 
be carried out; nor did it anticipate what should be done with the 
corporate property of the congregation in case of a split. But what 
to the casual observer appears to be grave faults becomes a mere mat- 
ter of refraining from repetition when we consider that nearly all 
of these things were provided for in Pontoppidan’s Collegium Pas- 
torale and the Ritual of the Church of Denmark and Norway, 
to which the pastors were bound by oath. This, of course, does not 
remove the stigma attached to the Grundtvigianism which Rev. 
J. W. C. Dietrichson professed, nor does it wholly remove some 
of the other difficulties, for the Ritual and Altar Book were subject 
to change by the pastor. Further, some of the things he put into 
his constitution have later more appropriately been incorporated 
into the letter of call to the pastor. Broadly speaking, however, it 
may be said that the main elements of the congregational constitu- 
tion were already present in the Norwegian Lutheran Church in 
America by 1849. Though Dietrichson’s constitution underwent 
many changes, it served its church as a most useful basis for further 
development, besides standing out as a milepost which the other 
Norwegian Lutherans were not soon to pass. What later became 
the Norwegian Synod element had thus emerged past the crude 
foundation work into the finer complexities of organized activity. 
With these achievements to his credit, Dietrichson deserves to be 
remembered for his far-sighted provisions. This also marks the 
end of his real usefulness. In 1850 Dietrichson left for Norway, 


* Text found in H. Halvorsen, op. cit., 37. 


78 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


never again to set foot on American soil. But we are not through 
with him yet by any means. 

Consonant with the great advance we have witnessed in the 
spiritual and administrational affairs of the Lutheran Church in the 
years between 1843 and 1849 is the great advance of the settlers in 
material ways. Hand in hand with the growing population of the 
settlements goes a rapid development of the resources of the rich 
lands of Illinois and Wisconsin under the frugal, intelligent, and 
energetic husbandry of the Norwegian immigrants. While the vast 
majority of the settlers were still “newcomers,” there were a few 
here and there who had by this time attained to the poise and dig- 
nity which is characteristic of the “old settler.” Many an abjectedly 
poor husmand, who was practically a serf in Norway, was already 
beginning to see a return for his labors such as he, of course, never 
could have dreamt of in the old country. As often happens to 
those long held in subserviency, many of these swung from enforced 
subjection to brazen arrogance. 

Yet it may be said of the Norwegians that they did not build 
themselves ceiled houses to the neglect of the House of God. On 
the contrary, they built the House of God almost as soon as they 
had provided the most scanty shelter for themselves and their fam- 
ilies. Indeed, from the very earliest time, beginning with Eielsen’s 
“meeting-house” to the present time, culminating in houses of 
worship passing—if not actually doubling and trebling—the hundred 
thousand dollar mark, the House of God has stood as a fair estimate 
of the utmost that the Norwegian Lutherans could put forth. This 
is the development at its best; even now, however, in many over- 
whelmingly Norwegian Lutheran communities the Norwegian Lu- 
theran churches are small structures placed on bargain lots in the out- 
skirts of the villages and cities. But the uniting of several—usually 
three: Hauge, Synod, and United Church—congregations into one 
powerful unit by the union of 1917 has brought about a most grati- 
fying advance in late years in the erection of beautiful houses of 
worship.*° 

Houses of worship in the early days most certainly were in keep- 
ing with the financial capacity of the communities. While Elling 
Eielsen’s “meeting-house”’ at Norway, Fox River, Illinois, was not 
strictly a church, it is at least to be rated as a “house of worship.” 
This house, constructed of white oak logs in Norwegian fashion, 
was twenty-four feet long, sixteen feet wide and twelve feet high.* 
The lower story was divided into two rooms and fitted out for 
family use, while the upper story, or attic, was the “meeting-house” 
proper. The seats consisted of split rails, placed on blocks; light 


“ Pictures of many of these church buildings are to be found on the front 
page of the Lutheran Church Herald, official organ of “The Norwegian 
Lutheran Church of America,” published at its Augsburg Publishing House, 
425 South Fourth St., Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

“R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 412. See also J. A. Bergh, op. cit. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 79 


was admitted through small windows. To match the sturdy and 
elemental physical equipment of the place, a sturdy and elemental 
Gospel was here preached, usually by Elling himself. 

In a class with Eielsen’s ‘““meeting-house”’ stand Even Heg’s barn 
at Muskego and Rev. C. L. Clausen’s house at Luther Valley, where 
meetinger or middens *® were held for a shorter or longer time. 
Though crude, these places of worship were fully up to the stand- 
ards of life at the time; they were superseded even before the stand- 
ards of life had improved enough to strictly warrant a very great 
change. 

Efforts were soon made to get houses dedicated (that is, wholly 
set aside) as Houses of God. Already in the fall of 1843 the Mus- 
kego “congregation” decided to build a church. Even Heg gave a 
plot of ground on the so-called Indian Mound, into the sides of 
which Soren Bakke and J. Johannesen had burrowed their “dugout,” 
and on this high spot the church was built under great difficulties.** 
Tollef Bakke of Drammen, Norway, again proved a friend in need 
and gave four hundred dollars, enabling the settlers to set to work 
in earnest upon the church building in 1844. This work called forth 
the finest cooperation on all sides, Rev. C. L. Clausen cutting and 
trimming logs with the rest.** 

Mr. H. J. Ellertsen of Wind Lake, Wisconsin, describes this 
church in a letter to Prof. R. B. Anderson as follows: This church 


was built of oak logs hewed on both sides, six inches thick, and 
matched after the Norwegian fashion of building houses. On the 
inside the logs were dressed perfectly smooth and then fitted so 
close together that no mortar was used between them. Double doors 
in the front were made of black walnut. The pulpit was also made 
of walnut and was about seven feet from the floor. Galleries were 
built across the front and along both sides to about the middle of the 
church. These galleries were supported by six heavy columns 
turned out of solid walnut. In fact the church was pretty well 
furnished inside. The erection of the church was commenced in the 
spring of 1844, and the dedication took place March 13, 1845. It 
is undoubtedly the first Norwegian church built in America.” 


This historic building was sold to a Mr. Jacobsen who used it 
as one of the houses on his farm, though it is hotly contended 
that he never used it, as has been said, for a barn.*® After it had been 
thus neglected for a time it was bought by Revs. G. Hoyme and P. 
A. Rasmussen and placed on the campus of Luther Theological 
Seminary, Como and Pierce Avenues, St. Paul, Minnesota, where a 
protecting house was built for it.47 


“ Norwegian corruption of the English word “meetings,” meaning the 
coming together for worship. 
“R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 419. 
“ [bid., 421. “ Ibid., 419. 
2 So said Hjalmar Rued Holand in his artivle, “Muskego,” in Symra, 1907, 
194. “Bergh, op. cit., 53. 


80 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


The Muskego church was the first to be started and the first to 
be finished, Rev. C. L. Clausen taking it into use in the fall of 
1844. But during this time Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s two congre- 
gations at Koshkonong built each its own church on identical plans. 
With characteristic energy Dietrichson dedicated his houses of wor- 
ship as soon as they were completed, dedicating the West church on 
December 19, 1844, and the East church on January 31, 1845. 
Clausen assisted at the dedication of the first but not of the second.** 
These churches were somewhat larger than the one at Muskego, 
being thirty-six feet long and twenty-eight feet wide. 

Fourth in order to be built and dedicated is the church at Luther 
Valley, Rock County, Wisconsin. This was built also by Clausen 
upon his acceptance of the call to this congregation (1846-47). The 
furniture in this historic church is still preserved in the West 
church at Luther Valley. Rev. J. A. Bergh says that this sanctuary 
marked a great advance over the others both in size and in churchly 
style. The bell of this church, which is possibly the oldest among 
the Norwegian Lutherans, still hangs in the tower of the present 
Luther Valley church.*® From this time on, churches were built at 
so many places that the individual building enterprises are lost sight 
of. 

There has been repeated reference to the “church order” that 
Dietrichson came to introduce. Not only did he speak of this 
“church order” as “edifying” and “precious,” but he actually sacri- 
ficed much in coming here to introduce it. But what does he mean 
by the “church order’? 

In a general way, he must mean the ordering of congregations 
on the basis of the doctrine and liturgical usages of the Church of 
Norway. The fact that he pledged the “forsanger” at Koshkonong 
to the Ritual of the Church of Denmark and Norway bears this out. 
One could get the background for Dietrichson’s ideas by referring 
to Pontoppidan’s Collegium Pastorale, but it is much more to the 
point for us to examine some of the remnants of the customs still 
in use probably dating from these early times. These customs and 
usages, quaint though some of them are, have a historical as well as 
a liturgical interest. We shall arrange our material under a few con- 
venient heads. 

Of great subjective, and some objective, importance is the official 
variably known as forsanger (foresinger) or klokker.°° Using every 
opportunity for magnifying their office, these men, in the days when 


“'R. B. Anderson, in passing over the clear testimony in Dietrichson, Reise, 
quotes Rev. A. Bredesen instead, and is led into the erroneous statement that 
Clausen assisted at both dedications. Cf. R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 426 and 
Reise, 48. 

“ Bergh, op. cit., 54. 

It would have been a rare thing to find both a forsanger and a klokker 
in the same congregation, though such a thing is easily conceivable. In that 
case the forsanger, as his name indicates, would lead the singing, and the 
klokker would read the opening and closing prayers and say his Amens at 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 81 


even reed organs were extremely scarce, succeeded in commanding 
the respect of the elders and inspiring the superstitious awe of the 
youth by their affectations and by many flourishes in connection with 
the performance of their public duties. Not that they were per- 
sonally unworthy; the contrary was almost without exception the 
case. Asa rule, the forsanger had received special training in Nor- 
way for the office of teacher, and when the congregations were finan- 
cially able to do so they gave the forsanger full-time employment as 
parochial school teacher, forsanger, and klokker.°* In that event a 
house was built for him near the church, and although he was held 
in much lower esteem than the pastor, to be sure, yet he ranked high 
above the average layman. To qualify as forsanger he had to know 
most of the hymn tunes and be able to pick out the unfamiliar tunes 
on a primitive stringed instrument called Psalmodtkon. Since he 
could not take this instrument to church, he had to depend on his 
memory for the pitch—a rather precarious performance, often bring- 
ing grief to the less gifted musicians among them. Nor was he 
always so certain in regard to the tempo in which the hymns were 
to be sung. He needed above all a “good” singing voice, not neces- 
sarily good in tone and timbre, but in force and “drowning out” 
qualities. It would have been presumption itself for anyone to lift 
a hand in church to beat the time; on the other hand, the forsanger 
was expected to lift his voice above the rest and assert his leadership, 
of which, by the way, he was very jealous. Though the forsanger 
could hold his own with most rival vocalists, the reed organ, even with 
its coy organist, proved too much for him, so that at present we have 
only a very few venerable representatives of this once powerful and 
influential class of laymen. While the forsanger and even the full- 
time religious school teacher have practically passed as a professional 
class, their numerous functions are now carried on, or revived, by a 
whole group of functionaries: for instance, the organist and choir 
director; the normal school graduates and college students who 
teach summer school; the full-time deacons, deaconesses, or other 
lay congregational helpers; and the prominent laymen who still 
function as klokker in many congregations. Whether this wide dis- 
tribution is a loss or a gain depends on the relative worth of the 
incumbents of the offices in the past and the present.® 


Baptism. Whether the klokker has ever had anything to do with the bell, as 
his name klokker, i.e. “bell-er” or “bell-man,” seems to indicate, is more a 
matter of etymology than of history; in so far as we are acquainted with him 
in America, his official duties have nothing to do with his name. 

71 shall refrain from mentioning the many congregations that might be 
cited in corroboration of this lest the idiosyncracies here mentioned might 
inadvertently be applied by the reader to the present venerable incumbents of 
the office. 

"It appears that the problem of trained lay workers is not as new as it 
might seem. It is, moreover, quite possible that the forsanger with his multi- 
tudinous duties proved fully as useful as most of the specialized functionaries 
of our day. 


82 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Most intimately connected with the forsanger was the congre- 
gational singing. Whether from lack of rhythmic sense or from 
metronomic slovenliness, the Lutheran hymns, as sung in not a few 
Norwegian congregations even to-day, are so fearfully distorted by 
sagging and dragging that the musically intelligent in the younger 
generation claim that the old generation is “singing them out of 
church.” While this cannot be laid entirely at the door of the 
forsanger, since this slow singing might easily be a heritage from 
the time when Norwegians could read only very slowly, yet the 
forsanger with his limited—or perverted—idea of hymn singing 
certainly must bear some of the responsibility. The musical standards 
of the times were not very high; hence it is quite possible that the 
average congregation would have resented as a disturbance any at- 
tempt to introduce such highfaluting stuff as dotted notes. Indeed, 
not all present-day Norwegian Lutheran organists succeed in ob- 
serving the few dotted quarter notes in Lindeman’s Koralbog, though 
they have the advantage of the organ; how much, then, might rightly 
be expected of even a lusty forsanger? The Lutheran Church is 
essentially a singing church, the people joining most heartily in the 
songs. What is lost in the art of rendering the tunes is gained in 
the understanding of the words, the singing sometimes approaching 
a recitative in order that the people may sink themselves thoroughly 
into the full meaning and spirit of the mighty Lutheran hymns. 
As a result, the older generation knew their hymns; they could 
quote hymns to a length and of a number that their modern critics, 
even among the pastors, cannot begin to duplicate.®* Only the 
world’s greatest hymns can stand up under such searching 
and intensive scrutiny of their meaning. After all, the 
tunes and words were to them only the forms or vehicles; 
with their keen spiritual perception they were not _ satisfied 
until they had grasped fully all that the text and tunes were able 
to convey. 

Religious instruction of the young was another function linked 
up with the office of the forsanger. Eielsen had made a reprint of 
Pontoppidan’s Dubbelte (i.e. dobbelte, double, large) Explanation 
(p. 41), but what more he did for the instruction of the young is 
uncertain. Mrs. Clausen took hold of this work after her husband’s 
ordination and, though she was very patient and self-sacrificing in 
her work of love, it cannot be said that the religious school as an in- 
stitution was firmly established by her efforts (p. 60). Rev. J. W. 


* My own grandmother could quote verbatim and scrupulously correctly 
Luther’s Small Catechism from cover to cover besides reciting, especially after 
she lost her eye-sight, hymns and devotional gems by the hour—so it seemed 
to my young mind. And she had not been to school a day in her life! There 
were numberless others in the older -generation just like her on this score, 
as most pastors will testify. It should be possible, of course, to devise a way 
of retaining this most religious devotion to the text without exposing the 
tunes to abuse. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 83 


C. Dietrichson brought books with him from Norway,** and even on 
the boat gathered the children about him and gave them religious in- 
struction (Reise, 4). No sooner had he organized the Koshkonong 
congregations than he engaged the forsanger, Ole Knudsen Trovatten, 
to teach parochial school for three months at a salary of ten dollars 
a month (p. 71). In conformity with the long cherished educational 
ideals of Norway (pp. 5 ff.), Dietrichson also provided secular educa- 
tion for the settlers by getting a public school started. Thus from 
the very first the Norwegian immigrants have not only most assidu- 
ously sought to inculcate the three “R’s”’ but they have added a 
fourth and most important “R,” namely “Religion.” By enforcing 
according to ability strict standards for confirmation,®® the pastor 
made the mastering of the fourth “R” the inescapable religious duty 
of every child. From this foundation work has risen a noble super- 
structure of higher education on a Christian basis which to-day 
(1926) embraces twenty institutions, at least two of which, Luther 
College and St. Olaf College, have won international renown and 
are the largest Lutheran colleges for men and for men and women, 
respectively, in America. 

Indissolubly connected with Dietrichson’s idea of the church and 
church order, was discipline. A short excerpt from his Reise illus- 
trates this admirably: 


At the same time as it is certain, that in the case of many it was 
a sincere longing that impelled them to join the congregation, a 
longing that had been brought into their consciousness by the longer 
or shorter absence of that great good, church order, which the hope 
of temporal advantage induced them to leave in the homeland, yet 
it lies in the very nature of the case that many lip-confessors and 
mouth-Christians also joined, and that the congregation here as 
always and at all places became a net which gathered in of every 


kind.” 


Very strict discipline, accordingly, was to be enforced, and to insure 
this the pastor was enjoined in the call from the congregation to 
maintain strict order in accordance with the Ritual of the Church of 
Denmark and Norway. When, therefore, a certain Halvor Peder- 
son, after several fruitless admonitions by the pastor, persisted in his 
sin of drunkenness and profanity, the congregation took the matter 
up and excommunicated him.®’ He was assigned a certain seat in the 
back of the church, as the Ritual prescribed; but when, in a fit of 
drunkenness and anger, he marched up and took a seat under the 
* Reise, 49. In a way, this was the beginning of the “Book Mission.” In 
1841 Eielsen walked to New York to have an English edition of Luther’s 
Small Catechism published. A photographic reprint of this was made by 
Dr. O. M. Norlie in 1925. Mrs. Eielsen later became a far-famed catechist. 
*° This is fully explained above on p. 5 ff. The same demands were made in 
America as in Norway, although the American standards could not be so 


rigidly enforced in all cases. 
Reise, 56-57. * Tbid., 68. 


84 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


pulpit, Dietrichson rebuked his effrontery by having him thrown out 
of church. In retaliation Pederson sued Dietrichson and the con- 
gregation for “assault and battery’—and won his case.°* While 
Dietrichson could not fail to irritate a large number of people by 
his summary way of dealing with men, there were times, on the 
other hand, when possibly he had very little choice in the matter of 
procedure, as he was dealing with a type which understood only 
physical compulsion. Indeed, in 1847, the ribald element harassed 
and threatened the pastor and his wife so unceasingly that one hun- 
dred and twelve members, at Dietrichson’s instigation, felt con- 
strained to bring the matter to court. Again the rights of the 
“foreign” congregation were set aside, with the result that Dietrich- 
son sent in his resignation to the Koshkonong congregations under 
date of October 23, 1847. He was, however, not relieved from his 
call; instead, more tolerable conditions were brought about through 
the pressure of public opinion, enabling him to continue his labors 
without any serious opposition during the remaining years of his stay 
in America.®® Nor were conditions better in other places. In Chi- 
cago, Dietrichson reports, the situation was still worse; the Norwe- 
gians there were so given to drunkenness, fist-fighting, and revelry 
that the “Yankees” called them “the Norwegian Indians.” °° In 
spite of the fact that Rev. Paul Anderson’s immediate parish was 
Chicago, he still gave as a reason for the need of the kind of work he 
intended to do in the Norwegian settlements with Reformed aid that 
the Lutheran pastors did nothing to better conditions.** As a matter 
of fact, the situation was not within the control of any race, party, 
or creed; before the “Indians” of all nationalities the church seemed 
weak and impotent. The “Norwegian Indians’ were, however, as 
tractable as any frontier group, and quite soon settled down to 
useful and constructive work. 

In a time when the forces of law and order were too weak to 
assert themselves with any great vigor, the churches—Reformed as 
well as Lutheran—were the real guardians of human rights and the 
arbiters of moral relations. The Norwegian group was naturally 
dominated by their own leaders, who were at this time Eielsen and 
Dietrichson. Both were very stern, but their constituency was ac- 
customed to sternness both in government and in nature, and hence 
regarded their sternness as a mark of pastoral thoroughness. 


** H. Pederson had hoped to embarrass Dietrichson by bringing this matter 
to a head just as the latter was about to leave for Norway. A Presbyterian, 
whose clergyman father had had a similar experience with the ribald element 
of the then wild West, voluntarily pleaded Dietrichson’s case, saying that not 
only had Pederson disturbed public worship, but he had invited violence by 
remaining on the corporate property of the congregation after being warned 
to leave. The congregation, as a free institution, had a right to admit or 
exclude whomsoever it pleased. 

® For Dietrichson’s account of conditions see Bergh, op. cit., 43. 

® Reise, 89. 

* K. C. Babcock, The Scandinavian Element, 117. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 85 


For the sake of completeness we must at this time also consider 
the “church order” from the standpoint of the conduct of public 
worship. This is its narrowest and most essential meaning as the 
high-churchly Dietrichson undoubtedly understood the term. We 
shall here attempt to include the quaint customs as well as those 
that have not materially changed in the course of the years. 

First and foremost stands the pastor. Much to the disgust of 
Eielsen and some extreme Haugeans, who flocked to Eielsen for this 
reason, Dietrichson and the Synod pastors wore the Norwegian cleri- 
cal garb. This consists of a black gown hanging straight from the 
shoulders to within a few inches of the floor. Over the gown is a 
stiffly padded, inch-wide, satin-covered stole, or “yoke,” which hangs 
around the neck and down both sides of the front the full length 
of the gown. This stole, or “yoke,” was mistakenly taken to sym- 
bolize the complete surrender (“going under the yoke’) of the 
pastor to the sovereign will of God.®*? At the back of the neck, the 
stole, or “yoke,” is raised somewhat so as to support the white, 
fluted collar or ruff. The ruff, which is three inches wide and 
one inch thick, is worn Sir Walter Raleigh fashion, over the pastor’s 
ordinary wing collar, and symbolizes the purity and glory of the 
pastoral office. This white fluted collar with the black gown gives 
the pastor a worthy and dignified appearance when he approaches 
the Altar of God or preaches God’s Word from the pulpit. On the 
three major church festivals and on other very important occasions, 
the pastor wore a white surplice over the black gown. It is not until 
quite recently that the Oxford, the modified-Oxford, and the gown 
designed by a committee of pastors of the Eastern District of the 
Norwegian Lutheran Church of America have been regarded as 
proper pulpit gowns for the Norwegian Lutheran pastor.®® 

Of the services, the hdimesse (high mass), or morning service, 
was overwhelmingly preferred to the more informal aftensang (lit- 
erally even-song or vesper).®°* Even in the early days when the serv- 
ice was held at whatever time the travel-worn pastor arrived in the 
settlement, the liturgical forms of the hdimesse were retained as far 
as time and circumstances would permit.®° In the more favored con- 
gregations where there was a church building and a church bell, as 
was the case at Luther Valley about 1850, on special days the stately 
hoimesse began on Saturday evening when the bell was tolled at 


“Ii the yoke ever symbolized submission to the Danish king, this sym- 
bolism soon gave way completely to that mentioned above. As a matter of 
fact, the stole symbolized the ministerial authority. 

* The constitution of Hauge’s Synod, perpetuating Eielsen’s prejudices, 
provided that “our Synod does not use the Norwegian clerical garb.” But 
their yearly meeting of 1898 struck this paragraph (seven) from the old 
constitution. See Bothne, op. cit., 896. Special concessions were made to the 
Haugeans in regard to the gown at the union in I9Q17. 

* Names retained in the Church of Norway from Catholic times. 

* Indeed, Dietrichson made a point of this, that he brought the forms of 
the Church of Norway to the settlers. 


86 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


five, or at sundown in the country congregations. On Sunday morn- 
ing, the kirkevarge, or the church-warden, tolled the bell at three 
separate half-hour intervals. At the third tolling of the bell, the 
people quietly took their places in church, the men on the right, 
and the women on the left. The pastor meanwhile having pro- 
ceeded to the altar, the service was formally opened by the three 
concluding taps of the bell, whereby the Holy Trinity is symbolically 
invoked. The klokker, or sexton, who was usually also forsanger, 
or precentor, stepped with great dignity to the chancel and read the 
opening prayer, which prayer for this reason was called klokker bon 
(boén-prayer), even when read by the pastor. The pastor, who had 
knelt before the altar during the opening prayer, rose and faced the 
altar during the singing of the first hymn by the congregation under 
the vocal leadership of the forsanger, who was held responsible for 
the pitch of the tune as well as its proper singing. The hymn sung, 
the pastor turned to the congregation and, after the proper pastoral 
salutations and congregational responses, chanted the Collect for the 
Day and read the Epistle for the Day, the congregation standing 
meanwhile. After a second hymn, the pastor read the Gospel for the 
Day.®® The congregation, having risen to hear the Gospel lesson, 
remained standing while the Creed was repeated in unison by pastor 
and congregation. The congregation again sang a hymn, at the con- 
cluding words of which the pastor mounted the pulpit and, after three 
taps of the bell,®’ offered a free prayer, usually along the general 
lines of his sermon. He then read his text to the risen congregation 
and preached his sermon, the sermon culminating in the Lesser 
Gloria.®® Thereupon the pastor read, while yet in the pulpit, the 
General Prayer, in which are remembered the government of the 
United States, the sick, the fatherless, other right-believing denomi- 
nations, and those who suffer for the sake of Christ’s name. This 
was concluded with the Lord’s Prayer, and after the announcements 
were made the congregation rose to receive the Apostolic Benediction. 
The congregation then sang another hymn. If there were no Baptism 
nor Holy Communion, the pastor chanted, with the proper salutations 
and responses, the Collect for the Word and the Aaronitic Blessing. 
Then followed the fifth, and closing, hymn, whereupon the klokker 


* Two series of texts were later added to the first. The second series was 
first used on the first Sunday in Advent, 1887; the third series was taken into 
use on the first Sunday in Advent, 1888. In Dietrichson’s time there was only 
one series of texts. 

“ This was not used in all communities. Theoretically the ringing followed 
the singing of the Gospel at the Altar. (See Danmarks og Norges Kirke- 
Ritual (Christiania, 1883), 12.) 

* This begins “Glory be to the Father,” etc. For the Lutheran service 
among the Norwegians in America, its meaning and symbolism, see O. E. 
Brandt, Notes on Pastoral Theology, in manuscript, and E. Kr. Johnsen, 
I Kirke. For the general Lutheran service see C. F. W. Walther, Ameri- 
canisch-Lutherische Pastoraltheologie (Concordia Publishing House, St. 
Louis, 1875), and G. H. Gerberding, The Lutheran Pastor. But we are here 
more interested in some of the quaint old customs. 


DIETRICHSON—KOSHKONONG 87 


read the closing prayer from the chancel, the pastor kneeling mean- 
while. 

Some details are necessary to fill out this sketchy picture of the 
“church order.” Baptism is an integral part of the Lutheran serv- 
ice. The font is placed at the worshiper’s left and the pulpit at 
his right as he faces the altar, which is in the center. After the 
hymn at the close of the sermon the first verse of the baptismal 
hymn was sung, during which the child was brought forward by the 
godmother and the sponsors. After the reading of the baptismal 
formula, in which Bible passages are quoted to explain the nature 
and regenerating power of Baptism, the child is baptized by “sprink- 
ling” into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In early 
times the forsanger assisted by certain responses.*® 

The Lord’s Supper, though theoretically a part of every Lutheran 
service and to be administered at any church service at the demand 
of five, was usually administered at stated seasons of the year. Rev. 
C. L. Clausen, at the suggestion of Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, in- 
sisted that the people of Muskego announce themselves for Com- 
munion on Saturdays in order to give time for a proper confessional 
and also to avoid possible embarrassment in case some one had to 
be denied Communion on account of his sinful life.7° At those stated 
seasons, the whole service was dedicated to the intent and meaning 
of the Communion. The communicants knelt at the circular altar- 
railing when absolved and communed by the pastor. Non-members, 
unbaptized adults, and the unconfirmed were not admitted to Com- 
munion, however worthy they otherwise might be. Both sexes com- 
muned at the same time, the men kneeling at the right half of the 
railing and the women at the left half. 

The central and most important part of the Lutheran service was 
the sermon.’ The pastor was expected to preach on the text for the 
day, thereby assuring the churchgoers that he would, in the course 
of the year, touch upon all the cardinal points in the order of sal- 
vation. Besides saving the pastor the time and worry incident to 
looking for texts, this enabled the worshiper to read the text at 
home and, as many pious members did, to meditate upon it and pray 
for the Spirit of God to enlighten both himself and his pastor in 
regard to the truths of the text. In the Synod the emphasis in the 
sermons was laid on pure doctrine and holy lives; in the Haugean 
circles the emphasis was more especially on conversion and sancti- 
fication. 

The collection of money in church was distasteful to these children 


® The Franckean-Lutheran, Paul Anderson, in Nordlyset for April 12, 
1849, attacks some of the customs used at Baptism by the Norwegian Lutheran 
clergy “as ceremonial witchcraft” and finds fault particularly with the use of 
the Apostles’ Creed and sponsors in connection with this rite. See J. A. Bergh, 
Opwmcit,.i51; 

® This called forth a storm of protest and was one of the reasons why 
Clausen left Muskego. See Reise, App. 

"0. E. Brandt, Homiletics Notes. 


88 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


of the State Church. Since the local and synodical treasuries had 
been filled by taxation in Norway, it easily became “beggary’”’ when 
the pastor and his treasurers became insistent in regard to “volun- 
tary” donations in “free” America. And yet these people contrib- 
uted in proportion to their means sums that would shame all but 
the most liberal givers in our day. While this money was given “to 
the Lord and the extension of his Kingdom,” the House of God was 
not the place to carry on these financial transactions. Special meet- 
ings had to be called for this, and while these meetings were held in 
the church building as a rule—the convenient church basements and 
parish houses had not yet been “‘invented’’—a distinction was drawn 
between the elevated and supramundane héimesse and the so-called 
“congregational business meeting.’ While it took a generation or 
two before these people “felt right” about combining the “hdimesse”’ 
and the ordinary Sunday offering, it was recognized more and more 
that money placed upon the Altar of the Lord and dedicated to Him 
from Sunday to Sunday is not necessarily such an “unclean thing” 
that it destroys the sanctity of worship. The Norwegian Luther- 
ans have made great strides in the matter of contributions to the 
church in late years. 


CHAPTER: V 
OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 


WE have traced Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s development of the 
congregational organization up to his departure in 1850. In the 
meantime, we have been forced to leave out of account several other 
events of great importance that were taking place at this time. True, 
we mentioned something about Elling Eielsen’s work between 1843 
and 1845, but it was in 1846 that his work assumed a more historic 
character, as it was then that he, who cared nothing for constitutions, 
protocols, and deliberative assemblies, consented to introduce all these 
things into his group. Before we take up this in detail, we need to 
take an inventory of matters as they stood in the Eielsen camp at the 
beginning of 1846 as compared to Dietrichson’s camp at about the 
same time—the middle of the summer of the same year when Diet- 
richson returned from Norway. 

With no great amount of organization even in Dietrichson’s con- 
gregations at the beginning of 1846, the whole Norwegian American 
situation really hung in the balance, depending on the ability of 
either, or both, of these strong leaders to induce the settlers to accept 
their personal leadership. The preference of the settlers was natur- 
ally first of all for the Norwegian Lutheran Church of. America as 
such, and then, more specifically, for one of these two contending 
factions. Some few, it is true, in their undue haste to become 
“Americanized,” turned their backs upon everything “foreign,” in 
the mistaken notion that a church speaking a foreign language can- 
not at the same time be intensely loyal to America and her institu- 
tions. These, whose chief endeavor it was to ‘‘Americanize”’ the 
church, were soon to get their spokesmen within the Norwegian 
Lutheran Church; but at the time under consideration there were 
only two chief opposing forces, headed by Eielsen on the one hand and 
meen on the other. Clausen accepted Dietrichson’s leader- 
ship. 

As to method, Dietrichson and Eielsen were diametrical opposites 
in regard to their theories of the Church and who should belong to it, 
while they were fundamentally agreed both as to the ultimate and the 
proximate aims of the Church. The ultimate aim of the Church was, 
of course, to save sinners; the proximate aim, to train the converted 
sinners for their eternal goal by exercising them in the Christian vir- 
tues, such as obedience, self-restraint, and a zealous regard for the 
true faith. Both, of course, laid a reasonable emphasis on Christian 


89 


90 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


charity and forgiveness. On the negative side—and this was the 
most prominent—they both attacked the vices that were common, par- 
ticularly drunkenness and brawling. 

While moral issues and church discipline received some attention, 
they nevertheless played only a relatively minor role in determining 
the course that the well-poised forces of Norwegian American 
Lutheranism should take. Although the settlers sometimes were in- 
ordinate and on occasion gave their passions free rein in moments 
of relaxation and recreation, they ordinarily had such a great meas- 
ure of self-restraint and wholesome respect for constituted author- 
ity that no severe criticisms have been raised against the morality of 
the rank and file of the Norwegians. Neither Eielsen nor Dietrich- 
son wished to go counter to the well-established ideas of the settlers 
in regard to order and good citizenship even in this “free” country. 

The determining factor in Norwegian American church life is by 
all odds the religious one. The change from the life in the chary 
mountain valleys in Norway to life in the best agricultural lands of 
the Middle West was not so great as it might at first seem, since the 
settlers suffered hardships in America that far exceeded anything 
any of them—excepting possibly the Lofoten fishermen—had ever 
suffered in Norway. A people who contended with such things as 
digging out (“grubbing”) obstinate tree-stumps, making rail fences, 
building houses of logs, wading waist-deep in fog-drenched grass 
to round up their stock, hauling produce a hundred miles to market 
in a kubberulle? drawn by slow oxen, would naturally not hesitate 
to grapple with even the most solid religious problems. 

Hans Nielsen Hauge had demonstrated that the Gospel could be 
vitalized and brought very near to the rugged Norsemen in their 
homes among the mountains in Norway by one who fully understood 
their gnarled natures. By throwing the solemn voice of the Bible, 
the postils, and the hymn-books against the Norwegian mountains, 
these mountains, instead of being merely pitiless monsters grinding 
the faces of the people and crushing their lecitimate aspirations, be- - 
came vibrant with religious fervor and reverberated in soulful tones 
the stirring Gospel of present hope and future salvation. Hauge 
had given expression as truly as any seer of God to that particular 
nuance of the Gospel which touched the innermost recesses of the 
Norwegian soul, and his mighty words reécho to this day not only 
among the hills of Norway, but also on the prairies of the American 
Mid-West. 

There was a strong undertone of Law—too much of it, some 
would say—but shaded into it, and standing in bold, yet harmonious, 

* Their record for sobriety and good citizenship is unequaled. See G. T. 
Flom, A History of the Norwegian Immigration to the U. S., 22 ff. 

7A crude home-made wagon made of wood. Round logs cut into suitable 
thicknesses with a place for wooden axles through the center served as wheels. 
These were connected with the proper couplings and on this were placed 


bolsters and a wagon box of logs. A kubberulle is on display in the Luther 
College Museum, Decorah, Iowa. 





OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES  g1 


relief, was a full-toned Gospel which reassured and comforted the 
terror-stricken sinner. The dominant tones in the grand chord of 
life which Hauge struck for all Norway were a full-souled Christian 
forbearance and a great-souled spirit of forgiveness. On all sides 
there blossomed forth a genuine piety among the masses, and spiritual 
forces were brought into existence among the iay people that could 
be led, but not suppressed, by the clergy. The problem confronting 
any leader of Norwegian American Lutheranism at this time was 
not so much how he should awaken religious life—that was neces- 
sary, too, of course—but more how he might capitalize and guide 
the strong and fervent religious life of the people. Both camps of 
Norwegian American Lutherans held strategic points in this warfare 
in which church expansion played fully as important a part as spirit- 
ual expansion, but neither was as yet actually master of the situa- 
tion. 

Elling Eielsen really held the strongest position, for he frankly 
claimed to be the only true representative and exponent of Haugean- 
ism in America. But compared to the master, Eielsen was crude and 
rough-handed. How much of the real Hauge he had been able to 
grasp in his second-hand connection with this many-sided man can 
only be surmised; at any rate, a comparison between Hauge and 
Eielsen forces us to conclude that much had been lost in transit 
between the mild and forgiving Hauge and the severe and stern 
Fielsen. If Eielsen ever had grasped the meaning and secret of 
Hauge, he certainly was not able to reproduce fully the marvelously 
fine and sweet blend of Law and Gospel which Luther says can be 
found only in a true doctor of theology. Eielsen’s nature was able to 
sense only the more conspicuous elements of the Law and the Gospel. 
Since the carnal mind by its natural powers partially understands the 
Law, but is unable to understand the Gospel, it was natural that 
Fielsen, crude artisan though he was, should be able to make good 
in the popular mind his claim to being Hauge’s representative in 
America, for had not Hauge also preached a relentless and damning 
Law? This stood out; but his warm preaching of the Gospel was not 
so vividly kept in mind by the masses, who were not always spirit- 
ually qualified to receive the things of the Spirit. The name of 
Hauge had as tremendous an appeal on American soil as it had had 
on Norwegian soil; and since the immigrant retained the impres- 
sions that had last crowded into his mind when he left Norway, 
he generally sided with the friends of Hauge against his “perse- 
cutors,” the clergy. Thus, had he been a thorough representative 
of the cause he professed to carry forward, Eielsen could have swept 
everything before him and deflected the current of thought and emo- 
tion into the somewhat narrow channel of Ellingianism. 

Dietrichson, on the other hand, was equally unqualified to win 
general adherence. Reared in a home where the rights of the upper 
classes were jealously upheld against all opposition, be it from civil 
reformers as from Wergeland or from religious reformers as, for 


92 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


instance, the Quakers and the Haugeans, it was not surprising that 
he should be the apostle of authority and order. Dietrichson did 
show a remarkable adaptation in regard to the organizational situ- 
tion in the Lutheran Church of America, insofar as he granted his 
forsanger and other assistants possibly more responsibilities than 
were given laymen in Norway up to that time. Still these conces- 
sions to the “free” American spirit were counterbalanced by a high 
churchism and an aristocratic, almost autocratic, bearing that was 
bound to have an irritating effect upon the many lay “barons” who 
had held undisputed sway in their little valleys up in the Norwegian 
mountains. 

Besides these natural and inbred aristocratic tendencies, Diet- 
richson looked upon himself as the proponent of Grundtvigianism 
as it was still favorably known at the time of his departure for 
America in 1844. Grundtvigianism had its chief strength among 
the laity in Denmark; but in Norway it had taken a different turn 
and become mainly an academic awakening among the pastors, who, 
in turn, carried it to the people. The fact that the university and 
the young pastors sponsored Grundtvigianism was in itself a chal- 
lenge to the lay Haugean movement, which was propagated almost 
altogether by lay preachers. Moreover, the Grundtvigian move- 
ment emphasized the Sacraments as Means of Grace, whereas the 
Haugeans emphasized conversion and a personal relation to the 
Savior to the extent that they were in danger of losing sight of the 
inherent power of the Means of Grace. Add to this the bitter social 
and political struggles which were the last impressions of the emi- 
grants from 1836 onward, and one can easily understand that Diet- 
richson was not in a position to attract the more extreme Haugeans. 

Nor was he the man to bridge the gulf between lay and academic 
Christianity on American soil.* In the picture of Norwegian church 
life that Dietrichson retained from the time of his emigration, lay 
Haugeanism and academic Grundtvigianism were at swords’ points, 
with the theological faculty at Christiania of those days too weak 
to form a synthesis, as did their successors Johnson and Caspari, 
out of the antithetic forces. While Dietrichson lent himself most 
willingly to serve as the extreme pole of high-churchism, Eielsen with 
equal readiness had put himself from the very first at the extreme 
pole of low-churchism. Since no way was as yet devised of bridging 
the gulf between them, there could be no chance for codperation be- 
tween these two, who were equally headstrong and equally certain 
they were right even to the least detail. Each in his stubborn way 
set to work, Dietrichson undertaking to work from the top down, 
and Eielsen from the bottom up, with the distance between them still 
so great that they were not seriously challenged by the urge of co- 
operation. 

Dietrichson had had considerable success at first, possibly because 
the less attractive traits of his character had not yet become manifest. 


* See above, 12 ff. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 93 


Though his system was broad enough to accommodate the whole of 
Norwegian American Lutheranism, his personality soon became a dis- 
turbing and retarding factor. Fortunately for his cause, his more 
eirenic colleague, Rev. C. L. Clausen, served as a counterpoise and 
added the warm human element necessary for keeping the system 
from becoming odious. ‘The situation was materially relieved in 
the same direction by the advent in 1848 of Rev. Hans Andreas Stub 
from Norway, to fill the parish left vacant at Muskego by the re- 
moval of Clausen to Luther Valley in 1847. 

Rey. H. A. Stub descended from a very notable family of pas- 
tors and bishops in Norway, and at the age of fifteen had received 
his first impression of America.* At that time his father came 
home to his parsonage and told his family that some of the best mem- 
bers of his parish were emigrating to the wild country called America, 
where there were fierce Indians.’ Young Stub shared the horrors 
of the rest; nevertheless, when he heard, at his graduation from the 
theological seminary at Christiania, of the plight in which the Mus- 
kego settlers were placed at Clausen’s removal, he laid the matter 
before his betrothed and together they decided to go to Muskego. They 
were married, and in a very few days the groom set out on the ardu- 
ous journey to Christiania to arrange for his ordination to the holy 
ministry. After a touching farewell with relatives and friends, many 
of whom regarded emigration as equivalent to an untimely burial 
because of their vague notions about robbers, rattlesnakes, and In- 
dians in America, they boarded ship at Bergen in April, 1848, and 
nine weeks later, on July 1st, landed in New York, in time to be 
thoroughly frightened by the wild “Fourth” in the great metro- 
polis. After the usual hardships they arrived at Muskego, where 
Even Heg very coolly received them into his “hotel.” Heg had had 
some unpleasantness with Dietrichson, and since Stub came in re- 
sponse to a call sent at the instance of Dietrichson, Heg—who with 
Reymert had not signed the call—thought that Stub would continue 
Dietrichson’s lordly rule over the congregations. Before retiring that 
night, however, Stub succeeded in dispelling Heg’s misgivings and 
the latter became his staunch friend thenceforth. 

Stub preached his first sermon on July 17 and, after a visit 
to Dietrichson at Koshkonong, took hold of his work with vigor. 
He was immediately “swamped” by requests from settlers far and 
near to come to preach for them, and in spite of the difficulty of 
travel he managed to serve such widely separated points as York- 
ville, Milwaukee, Port Washington, Sackville, and Port Julio, go- 
ing northward by boat to Manitowoc, Gjerpen and Valders, up to 
Green Bay and outlying districts in the far North; south again to 
Rock River, Pine Lake and neighboring places, west to Skoponong, 


“See H. G. Stub, “Fra fars og mors liv,” in Symra, 1907, 18 ff. 

* This was at Samnanger. When Stub came to America he served some of 
the people—among them Mons Aadland—whom his father had vainly tried to 
dissuade from emigrating to this “wild land.” 


94 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Whitewater, Sugar Creek, Blue Mounds, and Dodgeville, and to 
Wiota and neighboring places. Upon receiving a most urgent in- 
vitation, he went to Chicago and, besides performing many strictly 
ministerial functions, was called upon, as the “bishop” of Muskego, 
to sit in judgment between Paul Anderson’s parishioners and their 
pastor, whom they openly accused of not being a Lutheran. An- 
derson’s only reply, it was said, was that he owned the church, and 
if they did not keep quiet he would send for the police and oust 
all of them. If Dietrichson had been there instead of Stub he would 
have forced Anderson to make good his threat. Stub, however, 
quietly withdrew and at a later meeting in his hotel rooms arranged 
to have the objectors served by pastors in whom they had confi- 
dence. 

In passing, we have brought out two incidents that illustrate the 
tact and poise of Rev. H. A. Stub. He won Even Heg over and made 
him his friend; he retired with dignity from the meeting in Chi- 
cago. Stub has been somewhat fittingly called the St. John of the 
pioneer church. And the church needed above all an apostle of love 
at this time. He combined the learning and thorough grounding 
in the fundamentals of Lutheranism that characterized Dietrichson 
with the democracy and tact that characterized Clausen. In endur- 
ing and persevering zeal he was the equal of both. Dietrichson’s 
zeal was expansive but repelling; Stub’s zeal was intensive and at- 
tractive. Clausen’s zeal was genuine enough, but his poor health 
combined with the feeling that he had not been adequately trained 
for the ministry and the fact that he had not been ordained by a 
bishop had its psychological effect, not least upon Clausen himself. 
Stub was, therefore, a most valuable accession to the Dietrichson 
party. But even his somewhat polished, peace-loving, and friendly 
manner was not sufficient to bridge the gulf that Dietrichson con- 
stantly was making wider between the ‘State Church pastors” and 
the intelligent laymen. In all his work Stub was ably assisted by 
his altogether lovely and devoted wife, Ingeborg Stub.’ 

That which created problems was the fact that Stub had certain 
Grundtvigian tendencies in regard to the Church, the Apostolic 
Creed, and the conversion of the heathen after death, and that these 
ideas were hotly attacked by Eielsen. Stub, in turn, criticized Eielsen 
very severely. Possibly Eielsen did not altogether deserve this; 
though it is significant that he succeeded in arousing bitter enmities 
in quite a few quarters. These Vikings of the North did not mince 
matters in their controversies with each other, and their zeal for the 
pure doctrine was possibly mixed with less ideal elements. At any 
rate, the struggle between the Dietrichson faction and Eielsen did 


°H. G. Stub, op. cit. 

"For a beautiful tribute to her see Bedstemor (Grandma), written by 
Valborg Hovind Stub at Paris, 1889, and published in Amerika, March 16, 
1899. This was added to H. G. Stub, “Fra fars og mors liv,” in Symra, 
Decorah, Iowa, 1907, 37 ff. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 95 


not in any measure abate; and it takes two sides to have a con- 
flict. 

During this time from 1846 and on, Eielsen had been forced, at 
least partially, to adapt himself to the changing spirit that was mak- 
ing itself felt in Norwegian Lutheran circles in America. 

Eielsen, in his travels, came into contact with two young men, 
Paul Anderson and Ole Andrewsen, of whom he evidently expected 
help in the field which was now fast getting too large for him. Of 
Paul Anderson he had good reason to expect much. Brohaugh and 
Fisteinsen in their book, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, make it 
appear that Elling Eielsen encouraged the hopeful young man to 
study. This, however, is strongly denied by Rev. O. J. Hatlestad,° 
who says that Eielsen at this time did not persuade Anderson or 
anyone else to go to school, but that he urged Anderson in particular 
not to do so, saying that it was difficult for one who studies to 
preserve the simplicity of his Christian faith. Paul Anderson, how- 
ever, followed his own inclinations in the matter and received in- 
struction from a Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. Lemuel Hall, 
and was by him sent to the newly established Beloit College, Beloit, 
Wisconsin. Here he imbibed certain new ideas that were bound to 
give him trouble with Eielsen. Over against the ultra-Norwegian 
attitude of Eielsen—and the other pastors, for that matter—Paul 
Anderson took a position that could not but seem radically ‘““Yankee” 
to the Norwegian pastors. Neither Eielsen nor his countrymen as a 
whole were ready for this “Yankee” program, though there were 
those then as now who, after but a very short stay in this country, 
were so “Americanized” that they had completely forgotten both 
their ancestry and their mother tongue. It may be that Paul An- 
derson did not advocate this violent cutting away from the ancestral 
moorings,*® though he protested most vigorously against Eielsen’s 
“Norwegian” attitude. At any rate, Eielsen regarded him as a dan- 
gerous person who tried not only to do away with Norwegianism, 
but also—and that was really serious—with some of the distinctly 
Lutheran doctrines and usages. On March 6, 1848, Anderson is 
supposed to have written a letter from Rockport * in which he de- 
clared the Ritual of the Norwegian Lutheran Church to be “contrary 
to the Word of God,” to be “aristocratic and tyrannical,’ and that 
“no one in the evangelical church—except the Catholics—believes 


*Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 74. 

°O. J. Hatlestad, Historiske Meddelelser, 56. Rev. Hatlestad is very likely 
the “H” who contributed the biography of Anderson in J. C. Jensson, Ameri- 
can Lutheran Biographies, 25-27. 

For this attitude see I. B. Torrison, “Norskarbeidet og kirken,” in 
Symra, 1913, 49, 110. That Anderson went to greater lengths in his youth 
than he did in his later years cannot be doubted. 

“QO. J. Hatlestad denies that Anderson ever did write this letter, but 
whether he wrote it or not the result is the same, since Eielsen never thought 
otherwise. He said virtually the same things later and for this there was no 
excuse. 


96 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


that Original Sin is damnable, or that Baptism is conversion (!) 
or the new birth.” 1? In the last statement he attacked doctrines that 
are distinctly and definitely taught in the Augsburg Confession, to 
which all Lutherans must subscribe. At this time there can be very 
little doubt that Paul Anderson was a fiery and radical reformer 
who certainly wanted to be a Lutheran,’* yet had very vague con- 
ceptions of the Lutheran doctrine. On January 6, 1848, in conjunc- 
tion with Even Heg, he had visited Chicago and begun work which 
resulted in the organization of the first Norwegian Lutheran con- 
gregation in Chicago, February 14, 1848. After being ordained by a 
Franckean Synod pastor, he began work in this congregation, using 
the English as well as the Norwegian language. His work here 
grew to great proportions during his pastorate of thirteen years. 
On account of illness he resigned, but after a period of rest 
in Norway and elsewhere he took up again his work in 
the pastorate, this time in Milwaukee, where he stayed for a 
few years uneil he retired to his son’s ranch in Colorado, where 
he died in 1891. This man, then, gave promise of becoming 
a very valuable helper to Eielsen in Eielsen’s rapidly growing field 
of activity. 

Of course, Paul Anderson and his young colleague, Ole Andrew- 
sen, had observed the work of organization carried on by Rev. J. 
W. C. Dietrichson up to his departure for Norway in 1845, and they 
became ever more insistent that Eielsen at least organize his con- 
gregations. But Eielsen, as we have said, cared very little for pro- 
tocols and documents, since to his direct mind these were merely 
time-wasting devices. Quite characteristic of his attitude is the 
statement he is alleged at one time to have made when there was a 
question about keeping the minutes of a meeting: “I have nowhere 
read that Christ kept a protocol when he traveled about and conducted 
meetings for the people.” ** Imperfectly educated himself, he was 
frankly suspicious of the “learned’’ pastors and all the “learned” 
apparatus. But the idea of some kind of a church meeting would not 
down, and finally Eielsen, who was somewhat considerate of his 
friends, agreed to issue a call for the meeting. 

Just what was done at the resultant meeting held in 1846 is un- 
certain, as no such formal thing as a protocol seems to have been 
kept. It appears, however, that Ole Andrewsen, now (1846) or- 
dained, must have been a sort of an amanuensis to Ejielsen, who dic- 
tated while Andrewsen wrote.t® Paul Anderson, who at this time 
was attending school at Beloit, Wisconsin, also took part in the 
meeting. The first documentary evidence we have of what took 


*Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. cit., 76. 

*O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 48 ff., where Paul Anderson defends himself 
against the charges that he was not a good Lutheran by quoting Dr. Reynolds 
and Dr. Passavant. 

“Th. Bothne, “Eielsen,” in Kort Udsigt, 834. 

* Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. ctt., 75. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 97 


place is a letter signed by O. Andrewsen published in Nordlyset 
for September 7, 1848. ‘The letter reads: 


Jeff. Prairie, Rock Co., Aug. 24, 1848. 

Be it hereby known to the evangelical Lutheran church, which 
was organized April 13 and 14, 1846, by representatives of the 
people in convention, that the annual meeting, specified in the con- 
stitution, convenes the 29th of September, next (St. Michael’s Day) 
in Middle Point, La Salle County, Illinois, to take under advisement 
the church’s future needs. The various churches are requested to 
send such representatives as are elected by a majority vote, and 
not by encouragement of a single person. Likewise, that other 
individuals, of other Lutheran synods, are free to meet and offer 
resolutions, but have no right to vote. 

By agreement, 

Respectfully yours, 
O. Andrewsen.” 


This letter, of course, points to a meeting to be held on Septem- 
ber 29, 1848, which we shall presently consider. But first we must 
examine the letter for whatever hight it may throw on the meeting 
that was held in 1846 and on what this may have done in an or- 
ganizational way. We shall arrange our observations under a few 
numbered heads. 

I. The date is very definitely stated as being April 13-14, 1846. 
According to the secretary, some sort of a meeting must have been 
held on those days. 

2. An “evangelical Lutheran church’ must have been organized 
“by representatives of the people in convention.” If this “evangeli- 
cal Lutheran church” be a proper name, the name was, at any rate, 
in 1850 expanded to read: “The Evangelical Lutheran Church on 
Jefferson Prairie, etc., in North America.” This was again con- 
tracted into: “The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” or 
simply: “Ejielsen’s Synod,’ or “Eielsen’s Friends.” Was this 
“evangelical Lutheran church” the same as the church that went 
under the other names? 

3. The secretary mentions that a constitution had been drawn 
up and specifically states one of its provisions: That an annual 
meeting should be held. If it be true that the words “evangelical 
Lutheran church” constitute a proper name—which is possible— 
and that provision was made for regular meetings, we certainly have 
two very definite elements of a properly formulated constitution. 
The secretary’s statements on these points are plain, and the secre- 
tary would hardly make loose statements about a convention that 
was held only two years earlier and therefore was fresh in the minds 
of all concerned. Rev. J. A. Bergh,’” however, doubts the secre- 
tary’s plain statement on the point of the constitution providing for 


* Text in Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. cit., 79. 
™ Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie 1 Amerika, 49. 


98 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


a general meeting on the grounds that nothing is mentioned about 
this in the Old Constitution, which was put into final form in 1850. 
Indeed, a difficulty exists here, but a historian can hardly throw 
out the only documentary evidence he has simply because it does 
not conform to a more or less accepted view of the origin of Eielsen’s 
constitution. Rather than doubt Andrewsen’s plain statement about 
a very recent convention, one must even go so far as to say that 
the constitution of 1846 was so thoroughly revised that very little 
of it entered into Eielsen’s Old Constitution. Several things indi- 
cate that this is actually the fact. We have noted that there was a 
hint of a name in the constitution of 1846; there was nothing of the 
kind in Eielsen’s Old Constitution. We have noted that synodical 
conventions were provided for in the constitution of 1846; there 
was no provision of this kind in the Old Constitution. There was 
provision for orderly representation in the constitution of 1846; 
no such provision was made in the Old Constitution. Besides this, 
the internal evidence indicates that the bulk of the Old Constitution 
was written certainly not until late in 1848 or, more reasonably, in 
1849 or 1850. There are, for instance, very pointed references to 
Rev. H. A. Stub’s Wexelsism,® an issue that must perforce have 
arisen only after Stub’s arrival in America in 1848. Other references 
to issues that came to the fore not much earlier than 1850 will be 
pointed out in connection with the Old Constitution; hence we need 
only refer to these elements now. All the evidence, then, both from 
Andrewsen’s letter, from the constitution of 1846 contrasted with 
the Old Constitution, and from the internal evidence in the Old Con- 
stitution itself, indicates quite clearly that such a radical difference 
existed between the constitution of 1846 and the Old Constitution of 
1850 that there is good reason to doubt that they are the same docu- 
ment. No premium should be put on Eielsen’s stubborn disregard 
of protocols or other means of preserving the history of his church. 
In the absence of complete records, the historian must draw con- 
clusions that do not conflict with the documents in the case. An- 
drewsen’s statement that a constitution with certain specific provi- 
sions had been drawn up in 1846 must therefore stand, as Andrew- 
sen was recording events which were very fresh in his memory. 

4. Provision was made for orderly representation. Andrew- 
sen’s very pointed statement that “the various churches are requested 
to send such representatives as are elected by a majority vote, and 
not by encouragement of a single person,” indicated that abuses on 
this score had already crept in. Whether this points back to the 
meeting of 1846 or whether there had been a meeting in 1847 at 
which “a single person” had dictated who should represent the con- 
gregations, of course, is open to conjecture. Perhaps it was merely 
intended as a safeguard against possible abuses in connection with 

* Teachings of Wexels who wrote an Explanation in which, among other 


things, he taught conversion after death. This Explanation rivaled Pontoppi- 
dan’s for a time. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 99 


the meeting in 1848. At any rate, there can be no doubt as to who 
that “certain person” was, the letter breathing a profound distrust 
of Eielsen’s capacity for observing the proprieties connected with 
free representative church government. Subsequent events showed 
that the secretary’s distrust was not unfounded, as Eielsen unwit- 
tingly infringed in a most despotic fashion upon the inherent rights 
of others, driving all but the most submissive out of his synod. To 
Eielsen, the deliberative, hence slow-going, method of reaching con- 
clusions in an assembly was as irksome as it was useless. As for 
him, he laid down the law to the meeting very emphatically, clinched 
his argument by clinching his fist, and when he had thus “settled” 
the question, took his hat and walked out.19 That others who had 
met to counsel with each other were not disposed to consider the 
questions “‘settled” offended Eielsen very much. Possibly it was 
because Paul Anderson and Ole Andrewsen had tried to safeguard 
their rights by inserting into the constitution such matters as a name 
for the church body, time of meeting, representation, and so on— 
elements Paul Anderson might have gotten from the deliberative 
assemblies at Beloit College which he was attending—that Eielsen 
broke with these men in 1848, and utterly rejected the constitution 
in which these elements appeared in favor of the Old Constitution 
of 1850. Other considerations also entered in later, but the mere 
presumption of Anderson and Andrewsen in making suggestions 
at this time and, above all, of holding Eielsen himself to the con- 
stitution, was enough to arouse his suspicions that they were not 
otherwise “sound.’ Whatever defects the alleged constitution of 
1846 may have had, there were no “foreign” elements in the Old 
Constitution of 1850; indeed, as we shall see later, this was so thor- 
oughly Ellingian that it could well have been Eielsen’s single sermon 
transcribed as a homily for the edification of coming generations. 
Unfortunately, its dividing powers exceeded its powers of edifi- 
cation. 

After thus carefully examining Ole Andrewsen’s letter, we con- 
clude that unquestionably a meeting was held on April 13-14, 1846, 
and that evidently an “evangelical Lutheran church” was organized 
at this meeting by duly constituted representatives to the meeting. In 
the constitution drawn up at this meeting, certain very specific provi- 
sions were made for annual meetings, orderly representation, ad- 
visory membership, and possibly a name. What else took place we 
do not know except that Andrewsen wrote and Eielsen dictated. 
From this letter and from subsequent events we might infer that 
Andrewsen and Paul Anderson gave Eielsen somewhat of a free 
hand in the meeting of 1846. Yet these men—and Paul Anderson 
especially—succeeded in inserting certain obvious provisions to give 
the document the semblance of a constitution. In this Eielsen prob- 
ably concurred as an indulgent concession to his two young friends, 


Py. A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika, 50, de- 
scribes Eielsen’s summary way of stating his case and then leaving. 


100 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


though he had little sympathy with new-fangled, formal things. But 
when these men played him false, as he thought, in 1848, he promptly 
tried to expurgate from the constitution of 1846 all these suspicious 
and troublesome provisions. In the process of revision the con- 
stitution of 1846 was practically destroyed, and an entirely new, 
purely Ellingian, document was produced, which later received the 
name the Old Constitution. 

As intimated, this, of course, seriously affects the questions of the 
age of the synod which Eielsen organized. If the constitution of 
1846 was set aside by Eielsen and his friends in favor of the Old 
Constitution of 1850, then this radical revision, which cannot at all 
be classed as a case of amending the constitution of 1846, must be 
reckoned as a reorganization. In that case, The Evangelical Lutheran 
Church of America must date from 1850 instead of 1846. Under 
about the same circumstances, the Norwegian Synod, which was 
organized in 1851, and reorganized in 1853, dates its existence, not 
from 1851, but from 1853. In any event, Eielsen’s Synod is the 
oldest Norwegian Lutheran synod in America. 

Out of these obscure transactions of 1846 emerges this clean- 
cut and well-defined thought that Eielsen and his friends did not 
choose to become a part of Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s as yet roughly 
outlined system, but that they were absolutely and definitely com- 
mitted to a separate and independent corporate existence. It does 
not appear, however, that Eielsen gave the matter of congregational 
organization much thought at any time; he possibly intended that 
his constitution should serve both for congregational and synodical 
organizations, though presently he drew up a congregational consti- 
tution. 

We are now ready to take up the main point in Ole Andrew- 
sen’s letter, namely, that the secretary issued a call for a meeting of 
Fielsen’s church body in accordance with the constitution of 1846, 
this meeting to be held at Middle Point, Fox River, Illinois, Sep- 
tember 29, 1848. Two things needed attention: 1. Complaints 
against Eielsen. 2. Entrance into the Franckean Synod. 

When the meeting of 1848 was convened, Paul Anderson, who 
had lately been ordained, was elected president, and Ole Andrewsen 
secretary. The secretary now read a long list of charges against 
Eielsen, comprising “everything that he here and there has been ac- 
cused of.” FEielsen asked for the right accorded even criminals to 
have time to prepare a defense. To this the chairman replied that 
“the matter is so clear, the proofs so evident,” that delaying action 
was unnecessary. Eielsen, who was not the man to debate a mat- 
ter in a meeting, arose, took his hat, and walked out This he re- 
garded as a Christian virtue, saying it was better to leave than to 
quarrel; his opponents, on the other hand, said it was only another 
example of his incurable stubbornness.?° No definite charges were 
made at this time, though even Mrs. Eielsen was cited as a witness. 

” Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, of. cit., 80 ff., and O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 47. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES Io1 


She, of course, stood faithfully by her husband, and years later 
at a meeting in Chicago, where Paul Anderson presided, embarrassed 
him by arising to ask by what authority she had been cited as a wit- 
ness against Eielsen. Anderson told her to sit down, saying that as 
a woman she had no voice in the assembly. The charges, which were 
as yet very flimsy, were later given more definite form, though no 
reliable proof was ever offered as to Fielsen’s “immoral” life. Eiel- 
sen was an easy man to slander; first, because he cared little what 
people might think of him; second, because he took no pains to 
defend himself; third, because he gloried in persecution, as he 
considered it, for Christ’s sake. Without much ado, the meeting in 
1848 declared that it “could have no confidence in Eielsen until he 
put these charges to rest by a Christian settlement with the proper 
parties.” With Eielsen thus read out of the church, Paul Anderson 
and Ole Andrewsen sat unchallenged at the helm. Working hand 
in glove with them was a man who was later to come into promi- 
nence, namely, Ole J. Hatlestad. Hatlestad had come to America in 
the summer of 1846, consequently too late to take part in the afore- 
mentioned Jefferson Prairie meeting on April 13 and 14.” 

With the obdurate Eielsen out of the way, the second part of 
their program—to join the Franckean Synod—could be carried 
through without difficulty. It is easy to see why Paul Anderson, 
the Beloit College student, desired to join the Franckeans; as for 
Andrewsen, he was ordained by them in 1846.2 Through Rev. Mr. 
Empie of Sharon, Wisconsin, they had received a favorable im- 
pression of the Franckeans, who attempted to perpetuate on Ameri- 
can soil the ideals of the Prussian Union, whereby Reformed and 
Lutherans were to ignore their differences and work together in a 
thoroughly unionistic fashion. The Franckean emphasis upon 
‘“Americanization,” their hot opposition to slavery, and their small 
regard for strict confessionalism no doubt also appealed to these 
young men, who, as yet, were not much concerned about the vital 
elements of the church. That the Franckean Synod was not even 
regarded as Lutheran by the conservative Lutherans, they, at first, 
probably did not know.” They probably did not know, either, that 
the Franckeans did not accept the Augsburg Confession, that, on 
the contrary, they criticized it on several points, particularly in regard 
to the Lord’s Supper, Baptism, and Absolution, and that they 
spoke slightingly about the Lutheran Ritual and substituted for it 
their own Church Discipline and Declaration.2* Unfortunately for 
these young enthusiasts, the Franckeans were left high and dry when, 


“O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 55. For his biography see O. M. Norlie, Norsk 
Lutherske Prester i Amerika, 100. 

72 See Norlie, op. cit., 96. O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 56, however, says that 
Andrewsen was ordained at the first meeting of the Northern Illinois Synod, 
September 20, 1851. 

2 ©. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 46. 

*For this Declaration see H. E. Jacobs, “Lutherans” in the American 
Church History Series, 1V, 457. 


102 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


through the powerful influence of Dr. Walther, the tide of Luther- 
anism suddenly shifted to a very strict confessionalism. The situa- 
tion in which they found themselves can best be illustrated by the 
effect that their admission into the General Synod in 1864, coupled 
with other confessional difficulties, had on the latter body. From 
being by far the largest Lutheran body, comprising fully two-thirds 
of all Lutherans in America in 1860, the General Synod, through 
the defection of its members to other bodies, declined until it com- 
prised only one-fourth the total Lutheran membership in 1868. Such 
was the disastrous result of their admission to the General Synod. 
This, then, was the body that these young men proposed to join. 
To that end they passed the following resolution: *° 


In order to bring about brotherly love, and for the general pro- 
motion of religion among us, we have determined to accept the 
Church Discipline and the discipline of the Franckean Evangelical 
Lutheran Synod of New York and to unite with the same, yet with 
the reservation that our childhood faith be not taken from us; also 
that we do not wish to bind ourselves to any synod farther and 
longer than they walk according to God’s Word and teach God’s 
way correctly. 


Although there is a very grave distrust apparent in the reser- 
vation that they should not go farther than God’s Word, the fact 
remains, nevertheless, that a formal resolution was passed whereby 
these young churchmen joined the Franckeans. That this action 
raised stich an outcry that the provisions of the resolution were 
never really carried out, makes little or no difference in regard to 
their treatment of Eielsen and the possible motives back of the Mid- 
dle Point meeting; it was, of course, a great comfort to these men 
later that they had not proceeded very far with this proposed union. 
For the moment, however, they all three actually joined the Franck- 
eans, for they put into operation in their congregations the Franckean 
Church Discipline, whereby they undeniably became a part of the 
Franckeans. That they chose this church discipline to satisfy the 
legal requirement that congregations must have a constitution to be 
incorporated,”® only gives a legal confirmation to the fact that they 
were for a time Franckeans, and that their congregations were in- 
corporated as such under the laws of Wisconsin and Illinois. To be 
sure, Andrewsen and Hatlestad were poor Franckeans insofar as they 
neglected to attend the yearly meetings (which were probably held 
in the East, very likely in New York state) ; Paul Anderson, on the 
other hand, actually attended a yearly meeting of the Franckeans, 
though his congregation was otherwise unrepresented. 

As intimated, a storm of indignation burst over the heads of these 


* ©. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 47. Efforts have been made in these translations 
to retain faithfully the style and diction of these badly written documents. 

*Q©. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 47. Hatlestad, Andrewsen, and Anderson take 
an oath on this. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 103 


young churchmen. Their summary treatment of Eielsen and their 
reckless action in joining another church without first making in- 
vestigations certainly gave both Eielsen and others occasion for 
attack. They were young, zealous, and inconsiderate, and the only 
saving feature in the whole thing was the reservation that they 
should not be deprived of their childhood faith! Eielsen heaped 
scorn upon them for joining a synod in which they had so little 
confidence that they had to make a reservation of this kind before 
joining.** 

In 1879, in an address delivered in June at Rushford, Minnesota, 
Paul Anderson, by this time an old man, was willing to admit that 
he had erred, saying: “And in cases where we, which now in the 
light of later years’ experience can be seen, failed and acted less 
wisely than could be wished for, this happened for the simple rea- 
son that we did not understand the thing better.” *8 But as a young 
man he had not learned this great art of retraction. In reply to 
attacks by Clausen and others he launched fierce counter attacks, say- 
ing that they had decided to join the Franckeans because they felt 
“compelled to seek protection against ministerial deception and cleri- 
cal tyranny.” ?° Unmindful of the impression he made, Paul Ander- 
son wrote and said things that could not but irritate and alarm the 
wide-awake and watchful Lutherans of that time. In true Franck- 
ean fashion he criticized many cherished and established’ Lutheran 
customs and usages, freely designating them as papistic and for- 
mialistic : 


Many of the rites which are used in many places at Baptism are 
not in the least proper in the case of infant Baptism, and they have 
been transferred without any discrimination to infant Baptism from 
the Baptism of adults. Among these improper rites are the con- 
fession of faith and the renunciation of the devil. Instead of these, 
it would be more proper and useful to have an earnest prayer, in 
which the new member of the Christian Church is commended to the 
care and blessing of the Lord, and at the same time [there could be 
delivered] a touching admonitory address to the parents and others 
who are present. [He also said (zbid.)]: The Absolution is an 
offspring of papistic conception, and is therefore rightfully abolished 
by the true evangelical Lutherans. [And he further speaks of] all 
those who for very valid reasons for sake of conscience forever 
freed themselves from the Norwegian system of ceremonial slavery 
and from external church conditions.” 


By denouncing the use of the Creed at Baptism he attacked a 
venerable rite which had its counterpart in the Baptism into the 
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; without this Baptism 


* Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. cit., 82. 

7 O. J. Hatlestad, op. ctt., 44. 

* J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 52. Quoted from Nordlyset, April 12, 1849. 

® Article in Nordlyset, No. 26. The article is dated March 26, 1849. 
Quoted from Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, op. ctt., 84. 


104 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


into the Trinity the Lutherans claim that there is no Baptism. When 
he denounced Absolution as a Catholic relic which had no place in 
the Lutheran Church, he touched an institution which was rated so 
highly by Luther that he at one time termed it a third Sacrament. 
As for freeing himself forever from the yoke of ceremonial bond- 
age, that might mean anything; among the Norwegians at that time 
when church forms were under fire, a statement of this kind was 
extremely irritating. If Paul Anderson had been ignorant of the 
real character of the Franckean Synod at the time he entered it, 
he certainly now held its most advanced view on several very moot 
oints. 
i But Anderson must have found this extreme position untenable 
for any length of time. His sanguine and youthful dreams of forc- 
ing the whole Lutheran Church into more progressive ways did not, 
of course, come true; on the contrary, he met very stubborn oppo- 
sition from the Norwegians and—fortunately for him—some very 
capable help from the Swedes. Virtually ostracized and publicly 
warned against,*t Anderson found a friend in the Swede, Rev. L. P. 
Esbjorn. This man was at this time liberal enough to sympathize 
with Anderson, although he was very perceptibly beginning to swerve 
more and more in the direction of conservatism. With Esbjorn 
and Anderson in the lead, a few Swedes and Norwegians (among 
them Andrewsen and Hatlestad) formed the Northern Illinois Synod 
in September, 1851, as a direct protest against the loose confession- 
alism of the Franckean Synod. Returning to the Scandinavian fold 
after the “American” adventure, Anderson and his companions 
learned to appreciate their Scandinavian heritage, and began to come 
back to relative conservatism through the arduous and circuitous 
way of the General Synod, with which they also parted company in 
1860. Not too much can be said in this connection for Esbjorn, 
who soon became a theological professor. In the meantime, Ander- 
son’s venture into American Lutheran company was not so soon 
forgotten by his countrymen, especially those he had jilted. The 
persistent reminder of this Franckean experiment finally drove An- 
derson into a position where he could say, in 1879, that ‘“‘we twenty- 
two years ago with clearer and firmer words than any of our accusers 
have accepted all the confessions of the Lutheran Church.” * 
After the meeting at Middle Point in 1848, Eielsen was again 
left alone without any ordained assistants, though he had many ad- 
herents among the laity. He warned his people against the doctrine 
of the Franckeans and at the same time kept up his tirade against the 
pastors of the Dietrichson party. At all times he stoutly maintained 
that he was the only orthodox pastor, seeing that, as he maintained, 
Paul Anderson and Ole Andrewsen had gone off on an anti-confes- 


“C. L. Clausen had an article in Nordlyset for March 15, 1849, warning 
against the Franckeans, about which Anderson says it was “directly and alone 
applied to me.” (See Nordlyset, April 12, 1849.) 

”O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 48. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 105 


sional tangent in one direction, and Dietrichson, Stub, and Clausen 
on a Grundtvigian tangent in another direction. And there is some 
truth in Eielsen’s assertions about the errors of the others; and yet, 
when he begins to put his own ideas on paper, they also become 
quite easily the target of assault. 

In this dark hour Eielsen received a very valuable accession in 
Peter Andreas Rasmussen, more familiarly known as P. A. Ras- 
mussen.** Having had a fair common school education in Norway, 
this very gifted young man of twenty-one came to America in 1850 
to work, in true Haugean spirit, for the religious uplift of his emi- 
grated countrymen. Coming to Lisbon, Illinois, in 1851, he re- 
ceived an appointment as a parochial school teacher, and while thus 
engaged he used his spare moments for translating Johan Arndt’s 
True Christianity. As was customary for teachers in those days, 
Rasmussen conducted service by reading postils and by preaching, 
and this he did so well that the Lisbon people in 1853 insisted that 
he be ordained as their pastor. Feeling that he was not qualified for 
that important office by his present education, he set out for Fort 
Wayne, Indiana, where Dr. W. Sihler of the “Missouri” (Lutheran) 
Synod conducted a “practical’’ seminary for such as could not study 
the Scriptures in the original languages. Here he was ordained in 
1854, and on his return from the seminary took up work in his first 
field, which subsequently grew to include preaching places in what 
is now Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. Rasmussen thus 
arrived on the scene in time to take part in the meeting at Koshko- 
nong in 1850, though he was as yet so unacquainted with conditions 
in America and with theology in general that his share in the meet- 
ing probably amounted to little more than approving what the other 
did. 4 

Nothing daunted by his bitter experiences with deliberative as- 
semblies, in 1850 Fielsen called together some of his “friends” to a 
synodical meeting at Koshkonong, on October 15 and 16. At this 
meeting Eielsen’s Old Constitution was put into final form, and was 
signed by thirty-six men, with Elling Eielsen, pastor, heading the 
list.2* Among the other signers were P. A. Rasmussen, Paul H. 
Skavlem, Bjorn Hatlestad, and John Luraas. These men affirmed 
by their signature that, 


This constitution was first accepted at a public church meeting 
April 13 and 14, 1846, where a few of the widely dispersed believers 
were assembled at Jefferson Prairie, Rock County, Wisconsin, and 
at a similar church meeting (which was held at Koshkonong, October 
15 and 16, 1850, when more of our widely dispersed brethren were 


*For biographies of him see L. M. Biorn, Pastor P. A. Rasmussen, En 
Livsskitse (Minneapolis, 1905); Th. Bothne, op. cit., 842; J. C. Jensson, 
American Lutheran Biographies, 602, etc. 

* The Norwegian Synod leaders referred to these as the “thirty-seven 
faithfuls,” indicating that they thought that the signers of the Old Constttu- 
tion were thirty-seven instead of thirty-six. 


106 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


assembled) was again accepted, and in affirmation of this it is sub- 
scribed to by the following, who personally were present at this 
meeting, that is, at Koshkonong. 


It is agreed on all sides, however, that the Old Constitution 
underwent revisions in the years between 1846 and 1850. ‘This con- 
stitution contains a paragraph (six) against Rev. J. W. C. Dietrich- 
son, a paragraph (ten) against Rev. H. A. Stub, a paragraph 
(twenty) against Paul Anderson and his like, and on the whole it is 
a document which, judged by its references to contemporary events, 
must date more from 1850 than 1846. Insofar as Eielsen remem- 
bered certain portions of the constitution of 1846, the latter pos- 
sibly became, as Brohaugh and Eisteinsen say,*° the foundation upon 
which the so-called Old Constitution of 1850 was built. 

Dating the Old Constitution at 1850 instead of 1846 does not 
necessarily have the effect of throwing the date of the founding of 
Eielsen’s church forward to 1850, though the Norwegian Synod for 
very similar reasons dated its foundation not from 1851, but from 
1853. Eielsen neither had the first constitution of 1846 properly 
preserved either through publication or otherwise, nor did he hesi- 
tate to rewrite it in a most unwarranted manner in 1850. Since 
absolutely no effort was made to indicate what belonged to the origi- 
nal text and what later entered into it in the form of additions, 
amendments, and expurgations, and since the constitution of 1846 
had certain qualities sadly lacking in the constitution of 1850, we 
cannot but conclude that the two are so different that they can 
hardly be regarded as the same document. 

Most likely Eielsen, who never mastered the fundamental rules 
of parliamentary proceedings, did not fully realize what the action 
of 1848 at Middle Point meant. In a way he had severed his con- 
nection with his church, insofar as he had bolted the convention; 
in another way the others had done so, insofar as they had ac- 
cepted the Franckean Church Discipline. Without bothering him- 
self much about the delicate questions that were involved, he simply 
met with his friends at Koshkonong on October 15 and 16, 1850, 
and drew up his famous Old Constitution, which, admittedly, is a 
confession of what a church ought to be, but not a working basis 
upon which a church can operate. This so-called Old Constitution 
was very likely Eielsen’s sermon adapted to the circumstances, be- 
ing much more a homily on eternal and present issues than a con- 
stitution by which coming generations could guide their religious 
and practical affairs. Because practically every part of the Old 
Constitution has been subject to attack, I shall translate it and 
give it as it is found in Chapter IV of Rev. J. A. Bergh’s 
Den nosk lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika.*® At the great 
risk of doing violence to the English language—the original does 

Opa Cth 7m 

* 49. Parts of it are also quoted in O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 38 ff. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 107 


violence to the Norwegian—I shall try to retain its quaint and 
faulty diction. It reads: 


THe “QOxtp ConsTITUTION.” CHURCH-CONSTITUTION FOR THE 
EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH AT JEFFERSON PRAIRIE, ETC., 
IN NortH AMERICA. 


_ I. Whereas we, the united ones, have by the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ united and joined ourselves together into an official 
church body in the Lutheran Church, be it hereby firmly resolved 
and decided, that this our church body shall forever continue to be, 
just as it now is, in conformity to the genuine Lutheran faith and 
doctrine, and built on God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures in con- 
junction with the Apostolic and Augsburg Articles of Faith, which 
together with the Word are the rule for our church order, and for 
our faith and confession, as living members under our Savior 
Jesus Christ, who is the Head of our Church. 

2. In accordance with the order and method which the Holy 
Scriptures teach and convince, that nothing common or unclean can 
enter the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 27, etc.), no one ought to be 
accepted as a member of our body, except he has passed through a 
genuine conversion or is on the way to conversion, so he has a 
noticeable sorrow for his sins, and hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, from which must follow an improvement in his conduct as a 
testimony of the living faith’s activity in soul and heart, about which 
the Scriptures witness so expressly that they are the inescapable 
necessity for every true member of the true church body. 

3. Every member in the church must consequently strive, in 
virtue of the power of faith, to walk piously and blamelessly, and 
have constantly a wakeful eye upon himself, because he in love 
must remind others, who walk faultily (Gal. vi. 1). Not to pass 
harsh and merciless judgments on his failing brother, as one who 
sees the mote in his brother’s eye but is unaware of the beam in his 
own; but as a Christian, to whom it is becoming to seek the pure 
truth; and then one cannot possibly say good about the evil. 

4. One should according to Jesus’s Word in Matt. xviii. 15-17, 
remind and punish the failing between himself and him alone, and 
not trumpet forth his hidden faults to his harm and to the offense of 
others; if he hear you, you have won your brother. But if he does 
not hear, then take one or two others with you, that the whole 
matter may be established at the mouth of two or three witnesses. 
But if he does not hear them, then tell it to the congregation; but 
if he does not hear the congregation, then he shall be for you as a 
heathen. 

5. He who, with the prodigal son, repents of his trespass before 
God and man, he should be taken in again in the church body, and 
the church must not refuse that also that one is given absolution, 
that is, assurance of God’s grace in Christ. 

6. With popish authority and also the common ministerial garb 
we henceforth have absolutely nothing to do, since there is no proof 
in the New Testament that Jesus or his disciples have used or 
enjoined it. On the contrary, we can read in Matt. xxiii. 5, Mark 


108 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


xii. 38, and Luke xx. 46 that Jesus chastised those who went about 
in long clothes and performed [acts of] piety to be well thought of 
by men. Experience also teaches, that both minister and hearer 
[worshiper] often place a blind confidence in the dead church cere- 
monies and clerical garb, and through this do away with God’s 
command because of their custom (Matt. xv. 6). 

7. We believe that there is only one Master, who has left us an 
example to follow in doctrine, life and relations, namely, Jesus 
Christ, the Righteous One, who entered into the Holy [Place], and 
found an eternal propitiation. 

8. We also believe that the teaching estate is a holy estate, and 
instituted by God; as Paul says: “We are ambassadors in Christ’s 
stead, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s 
stead, be ye reconciled to God” (II Cor. v. 20). But this estate is 
abused by many as a deadly poison, so that they cheat both themselves 
and also others of the hope of salvation, until they awake in hell 
(Is. iii. 12; Matt. vii. 15). 

9g. Teachers or preachers ought to be elected by the congregation 
in such a way that they at least are taken on trial one year before 
they are permanently and rightly elected. Those who are talented 
with aptitude for teaching must procure the necessary knowledge, 
as far as the circumstances permit; but this, as everything else, 
must be subject to the Lord in faith and obedience, that not ours 
but His will is done. Paul says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday 
and today yea and for ever” (Heb. xiii. 8). He himself chose lay 
and unlearned men to proclaim his Gospel, which also was done with 
such power and wisdom, that the worldly wise in surprise had to ask: 
Are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we, every 
man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? (Acts ii. 7-II, iv. 
13). Jesus likewise says, that He not only will be with His apostles 
to the end of the world, but also with all those who, on account of 
their words, believe on Him; and that He will give all those the 
Holy Ghost who humbly ask Him for it. 

10. The young should be instructed in God’s Word from their 
early youth, The A B C Book,” Luther’s Small Catechism of the 
older unadulterated editions, and E. Pontoppidan’s Sandhed til Gud- 
frygtighed™ should be learnt and be explained for the young, so they 
can be enlightened concerning all of God’s plan of salvation. Each 
master and mistress should diligently instruct their children and mem- 
bers of their household, and by prayer and the meditation on God’s 
Word help along as much as they by God’s grace are able, that they, 
as living branches, can grow into the true vine, into which they are 
grafted; and likewise become accustomed to prayer and to call upon 
the Lord, since the children especially are more easily induced to 
pray than grown-ups. The grown-ups should pray with a reverent 
mien; because also this will have influence on the hearts of the 
young and attune their minds to more sobriety; especially ought 
to be held forth the sweet love of Jesus toward those who call on 
him. 

11. We should make it a point to further schools and instruction, 
and, as Christ’s true followers, let God’s Word dwell richly among 


* A beginner’s book in Norwegian. * Truth unto Godliness. 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 109 


ourselves, and, besides, do good to all, but most to those of the 
household of faith, who are united to help the needy as well in their 
physical as their spiritual need. 

12. It shall also be the minister’s duty, with the help of the con- 
gregation, to procure the necessary books, the wealthy paying the 
bill, since the needy must have them free of charge, who have not 
the means to pay. 

13. The children must be educated in both languages, but in the 
mother tongue first, though in such a way that the district school is 
not neglected.. 

14. We united ones repudiate altogether the fearful sin of giving 
our consent to the slave traffic; but rather use all possible diligence 
in bringing about, and supporting, opposition to it, to the freeing 
of the negroes, since Jesus has said, “All things therefore what- 
soever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also 
unto them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. vii. 12). 
They are also redeemed with the same blood and intended to inherit 
the same bliss, as other races. We advise that each one give this 
matter closer consideration. 

15. Likewise each one is reminded, who brings on dissension in 
the congregation and seeks to organize his own party, that those 
who are confirmed in the Lord and are what the Scriptures call 
“elders,” ought then convene together, and use all possible diligence 
in bringing about unity in faith, doctrine, and relations. If this 
bears no fruit on the contentious, then do as Paul says: “A man 
that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject; know- 
ing that he that is such is perverted, and sinneth, being condemned 
of himself” (Titus iii. 10, 11). About such it is that John says: 
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had 
been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they 
went out, that they might be made manifest how that they were 
not all of us’ (I John ii. 19). 

16. Each congregation shall elect ‘elders,’ who shall supervise 
all things in the church, such as the members’ daily relations and 
circumstances, whether the school is rightly conducted, and, besides, 
see to it that those who speak for edification do not go their own 
ways, and that they hold fast to the wholesome teaching and such 
other things as necessity requires; and, finally, that they are subject 
one to another in godliness. 

17. Likewise ought the congregation to combine to support by 
freewill gifts those persons who are elected by the congregation to 
travel about and proclaim God’s Word. 

18. The congregation ought to use all diligence in getting 
“awakened” and Christian-minded school teachers, who stand with 
the believers in the unity of faith, to the end that the young might 
be taught and rightly catechized and be given a true enlightenment 
in their Christianity, so that they can comprehend and understand 
it rightly to the renewal of their baptismal covenant, and thereby 
be renewed and grow in faith and in love to God and their neighbor. 

19. A pastor should, according to Paul’s admonition in I Tim. 
iii. 2, be blameless. If he, accordingly, after his election fall into 
perverse doctrine or anything worthy of censure, then the same 
means be used here, as are described in paragraph four above. If 


110 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


the milder ones do not bear fruit, so that one must perforce use the 
stricter, namely, expulsion from the congregation, then his errors 
should be publicly proclaimed in accordance with I Tim. v. 20; II 
Tim, 111. 7-9, etc., and thus in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
the unity of faith, and with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ sur- 
render such an one to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, that his 
spirit might be saved on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 
v. 45). In this, as in all things else, the Holy Scriptures are the 
only source from which the wholesome teaching flows out, especially 
when the Holy Spirit can get room to work in the hearts both of 
the teacher and the hearer, so they become subject to God and each 
other in the fear of God, and disposed to love each other mutually 
of a pure heart. 

20. The Sacraments of Baptism and the Altar are administered 
according to the Ritual and Altar Book of the Church of Norway, 
which we in all parts follow as far as the blessed doctrine is con- 
cerned. Nevertheless, the laying on of hands at Absolution is not 
used, since it cannot be seen from Holy Scriptures that Jesus and 
his apostles have used this at the Lord’s Supper; but as Paul 
reminds each to try himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of 
the cup. But when the pastor in his preparatory address has made 
plain the way of life and the way of death, as a true shepherd of 
souls, he concludes his preparatory address in this wise: “Accord- 
ingly, then, from God’s Word is declared to all penitent, repentant, 
and believing souls the forgiveness of sins in the name of the 
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” 

God give us all His grace to unite in Jesus’s name and in Jesus’s 
mind, that the power of his suffering and death might show itself 
in all our ways. Amen. 


Then follow thirty-six signatures of those present at the meet- 
ing. Among these signers are Eielsen and P. A. Rasmussen. 

This Constitution had its very great faults. It did not provide 
a name for the congregation or synod—it was to be a combination 
congregational and synodical constitution; nor did it mention any- 
thing about officers, their duties, the government of the church, its 
yearly meetings, rules for conducting business, and other elements 
that have a place in a constitution. It did have an ample and de- 
tailed confession of faith, but here too much was said. In paragraph 
one they wished to emphasize that they were Lutherans, but in so 
doing occasioned the charge that they exceeded even the Grundtvig- 
ians and placed the Confessions of the Church on a par with the 
Word of God. Paragraph two, it was likewise charged, is Dona- 
tistic, inasmuch as it stipulates that only the converted or nearly 
converted were eligible to membership in this church. The Augs- 
burg Confession rejects this view. Paragraph six speaks about cere- 
monies and the wearing of the gown in such a way that it came 
into direct conflict with Article VII of the Augsburg Confession. 
Paragraph ten is against Rev. H. A. Stub, who was suspected of 
Wexelsism, i.e. of sympathy with Wexels, who tried to introduce a 
revised Explanation to the Catechism to supplant Dr. E. Pontop- 


OUTLOOK—EIELSEN ORGANIZES HIS FORCES 111 


pidan’s Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed. Paragraph fifteen condemns 
schismatics and might well be construed as a parting shot at Paul 
Anderson. Paragraph twenty reasserts adherence to the Norwegian 
Church Ritual, which Paul Anderson had attacked; it also presents 
a view of Absolution which is contrary to Articles XI and XII of 
the Augsburg Confession. All told, it was an unfortunate docu- 
ment which was to cause a great deal of trouble, especially within 
Eielsen’s own ranks. By these acts of 1850 a church body was or- 
ganized which henceforth was known as The Evangelical Lutheran 
Church of America, Eielsen’s Synod, or simply the Ellingians. 


CHAPTER VI 
THE PREUSES—THE KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 


J. W. C. Dierricuson and his party, in the meantime, had not 
been inactive. They not only carried on a far-reaching missionary 
and organizing activity, but also took up for serious consideration 
the founding of a synod. 

Dietrichson saw from the very first the necessity of some sort 
of synodical organization. In his Reise, printed in 1846, he says: 


Very likely it has not escaped the attentive reader, that the con- 
gregations organized in the various settlements as yet stand isolated 
from each other, without any organic union of the congregations 
being brought about; that this, as the only condition for inner and 
outer strength in the congregations, is absolutely necessary, if the 
established church order shall become firm, can easily be seen. This 
need can only be met, when, after the arrival of several clergymen, 
they, together with the representatives from the congregations, form 
a synodical union with synodical meetings.’ 


When Stub came to America, Dietrichson again brought the mat- 
ter to the fore. In this Stub and Clausen seconded him. In April, 
1849, these three pastors joined in issuing a call for a meeting to be 
held at Koshkonong on the 15th of July of that year. After out- 
lining in genuine Grundtvigian fashion how necessary it was for the 
individual congregation to belong to a church body in order to pro- 
mote its salvation, they—or really Dietrichson, who seems to be 
the author—state the purposes of the meeting: 


I. To decide whether a synod or convention shall be organized to 
bind together the congregations, ministers as well as lay people. 

2. Write a constitution for the synod or convention, and also to 
elect a president and other officials, whose duties shall be more 
definitely determined. 

3. Consider what changes must be made in the Ritual of the 
Church of Norway to meet the American requirements, without, of 
course, changing its doctrine. 

Other things also will naturally be taken up at this meeting.’ 


They thereupon discuss in an impolitic fashion the delicate ques- 
tion of the apportionment of delegates, proposing that the main con- 
* Reise, 118, n. 
*The text of this call is found in Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes 
Historie 1 Amerika, 63. 
112 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 113 


gregations have three delegates, the tributary congregations one each, 
and the Jefferson Prairie congregation, though a tributary congre- 
gation, yet very large, two delegates. These delegates must be 
Christian-minded men, who have a sense of churchliness, and must 
be otherwise capable and upright men. The committee issuing the 
call shall, of course, pass on the credentials of each one, and if they 
find that ungodly or unchurchly people are sent, they shall refuse 
to seat them in the convention. Detailed instruction was also given 
as to when and how the congregations should elect their delegates. 
This was then signed by the three pastors. 

Throughout, the document breathes Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s 
irritating and dictatorial spirit. It was thoroughly Grundtvigian 
both in its “churchly view” and in its exaltation of Baptism. Lit- 
tle wonder, then, that Reymert, particularly, and Even Heg, both 
of whom thoroughly resented Dietrichson’s overbearing attitude,’ re- 
garded this invitation with suspicion and, in the case of Reymert, 
with open hostility. To Reymert this was only a veiled attempt to 
introduce episcopacy in America, with Dietrichson as the probable 
bishop. This prospect was so uninviting that he and others could 
not remain silent. When the matter came up for discussion in the 
Muskego congregation, Rev. H. A. Stub, the pastor, was sick, and 
hence the opposition had free hands to lay the matter on the table. 
This they did by passing the following resolution on May 29, 1849: 


After diligently inquiring into what the desire and wish of the 
people are in regard to the invitation issued by the evangelical 
Lutheran pastors to elect representatives to a convention to be held 
at Koshkonong this summer, we are of the opinion that all further 
steps in this matter ought to be deferred until our own domestic 
affairs are more completely ordered, also until the congregation, after 
a riper consideration of the proposed union with the other pastors 
and evangelical Lutheran congregations in Wisconsin, has come to 
the conclusion that this same can with comparative ease be brought 
about. 

Very respectfully, 
Jorgen Larson, Secretary, 
J. D. Reymert, President.* 


With a great deal of truth it might be said that Dietrichson’s 
personality so completely obscured this very worthy plan that the 
meeting which the pastors called in 1849 never took place. When 
the time came for the meeting, both Clausen and Stub were pre- 
vented from being present,° and all that Dietrichson could do was 
to read his sketch of a constitution to the few scattered delegates 
who had met. 

* We have above noted that Even Heg gave Stub a cold reception when he 
came to America because Heg and Reymert had been mortally offended at 
Dietrichson. See above, 93. 

* The text is. found in J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 66. 

°H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, 42. 


114 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


But matters took a rather favorable turn the next year. Dietrich- 
son returned to Norway in 1850, never to set his foot on American 
soil again. Heroic as he had been, well-meaning as he undoubtedly 
was, possessed of some talent for organization as he assuredly was, 
nevertheless he had an arrogant and irritating manner which gave 
offense and aroused opposition. In Norway, Dietrichson remained 
a pastor until, after a checkered career, he was dismissed in 1876, 
and made postmaster at Porsgrund. He died in 1883. 

Before his departure, Dietrichson had arranged to have his con- 
gregations at Koshkonong served by his brother-in-law, Rev. Adolph 
Carl Preus, who came to America for that purpose in 1850. Rev. 
A. C, Preus was born in Trondhjem, Norway, June 29, 1814. After 
private instruction (1828-34) he was sent to the University of 
Christiania (1834-41), where he received his A.B., A.M., and can- 
didate of theology degrees. For three years he was teacher at 
Kopervik, and in the years 1842-50 he was personel kapellan at 
Gjerpen, Skien. In America he organized twenty congregations 
and served as president of the Norwegian Synod. In 1862 he re- 
turned to Norway, where he served as pastor until his death on June 
OPO ZO. 

Rev. A. C. Preus at once took up the work of organizing a synod. 
Before the end of 1850 he invited the pastors and congregations to 
a meeting to be held on January 4 and following days, 1851, in Rev. 
C. L. Clausen’s charge at Luther Valley, Rock Prairie, Wisconsin. 
Not only did this meeting take place but it was well reported by 
Preus in the first issue of Maanedstidende, March, 1851." 

Not much was accomplished on January 4. The 5th, which 
was a Sunday, was naturally set aside for divine services, Preus 
preaching a sermon on Eph. iv. 15, 16. On Monday, January 6, 
there were present, besides the three pastors, Stub, Clausen, and 
Preus, thirty delegates from eighteen congregations. In spite of 
efforts to “kill” this convention also, only four congregations neglect- 
ed to send representatives.2 After credentials had been examined and 
the time of sessions and rules for conducting business had been 
agreed upon, the convention proceeded to the election of a temporary 
chairman and two temporary secretaries. Rev. A. C. Preus was 
elected chairman and Erik Ellefson and Hans Henriksen were elected 
secretaries. Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s draft of the synodical con- 
stitution, which was read in 1849, was now submitted by Preus, who 
seemed to have been altogether unaware of the Grundtvigian impli- 
cation in the words in our baptismal covenant and in its first para- 
graph. To the two other pastors, if they were at all aware of 
its implications, this offered no difficulty, hence the work of the con- 
vention progressed quite rapidly and harmoniously, until the ques- 


*O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester i Amerika, 97. 
‘For this paper see below, 1309. 
“A. C. Preus in Maanedstidende, March, 1851, 5. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 115 


tion of a name for the synod was raised. Since this was not pro- 
vided for in the draft, some thought the name might be inserted as 
a heading. Finally, Preus and a majority with him put through a 
motion that it should be given a separate paragraph, and that this 
paragraph should be numbered one. The question of a name also 
evoked discussion. Dietrichson had proposed, The Norwegian 
Church in America; Clausen proposed, The Norwegian Lutheran 
Church in America; Jacobsen of Muskego, The Evangelical Luth- 
eran Church m America; Ole Nielsen from Heart Prairie, The Church 
of the True Religion; and A. C. Preus, the Norwegian Evangelical 
Lutheran Church in America. As was their custom in case of differ- 
ences of opinion, they “slept on it,” and voted the next day. When the 
question came up again, Preus’s proposal that the synod be called The 
Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was accepted.® 

Questions were asked concerning the meaning of synodical-pres- 
byterial form of church government, but these were satisfactorily 
answered, as all felt that there had to be some, though not too much, 
church government.1° The Muskego delegation, which apparently 
had no thought of joining the church body, made a fight to have out- 
siders granted the privilege of speaking and making motions even 
if they could not vote in the yearly meetings. This met with heated 
opposition, and finally ended in a compromise, proposed by Rev. 
C. L. Clausen, to add a footnote to the paragraph (seven) in ques- 
tion. The question of the balance of power between the lay and 
clerical members in the church council brought out some discussion, 
the original motion, stipulating four laymen to two pastors, being 
upheld against Clausen and Preus, who wanted three laymen to two 
pastors. The laymen objected to the use of the word ban in con- 
nection with the exclusion of members and succeeded in having the 
Ritual changed so as to obviate the use of this objectionable word. 
With other major and minor discussions coming to a satisfactory 
close, the meeting accepted a constitution of twelve paragraphs and 
seventeen by-laws. 

In the Special Synodical Decisions is stipulated what was to be 
done about applicants for membership whose Baptism (paragraph 
one) and confirmation (paragraph two) had been received at the 
hands of persons whose ordinations were not acknowledged by this 
body. The point was that Dietrichson and Clausen had not ac- 
knowledged Eielsen’s ordination, and Dietrichson, at any rate, per- 
formed these acts again before he admitted anyone baptized or con- 
firmed by Eielsen into membership in his church. Eielsen, for his 
part, made no effort to prove that he was ordained, regarding 


¥ ab rts body was later known as The Norwegian Synod, or simply The 
‘ynod. 

* There should be a synod to which delegates were sent. This central 
body should have advisory power, as'the primary and highest unit of power was 
the congregation. 


116 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Clausen’s and Dietrichson’s queries as insults, saying they wanted 
to “confirm” his ordination."* 

Clausen provoked quite a discussion by introducing a motion con- 
demning the doctrine that there is a conversion after death. Stub 
strenuously objected to this, though he was careful to say that he 
thought that only the heathen could be thus converted. The pur- 
pose of this motion was to put the synod on record as being against 
Wexels’ new doctrine, which appeared in his Explanation of the 
Catechism. This Explanation was stigmatized by the Haugeans as 
Wexelsboka (i.e. Wexels’ Book). Its chief faults were that it did 
not, like Pontoppidan and the Haugeans, condemn dancing, theater- 
going, and similar things. It also taught the possibility of con- 
version after death for the heathen. In view of the bitter fight in 
Norway over these things from 1843 and on, and in view of the 
disturbances this fight also caused in the popular mind in America, 
Stub’s position had become a distinct liability to the Koshkonong- 
Muskego group.?? Clausen’s motion was adopted and thus eventu- 
ally put to rest the accusation of Wexelsism leveled against the 
Norwegian Synod. . 

Rules for examining parochial school teachers were laid down. 
It was also agreed that repentant sinners should be reinstated. It 
was decided that a meeting of the congregations be held in Febru- 
ary, 1852, in the Muskego church. At the election of officers, Rev. 
A. C. Preus refused to serve; hence Rev. C. L. Clausen was elected 
superintendent, with Preus the second officer. In this election the 
(three) Muskego delegates, the (one) Skoponong, and the (one) 
Heart Prairie delegate refused to vote, in protest against having 
an election at this meeting. 

In an article which appeared April 1, 1851, in Maanedstidende, 
Clausen most heartily commended the constitution to the congrega- 
tions, saying that the rights of the congregations were most definitely 
guaranteed by this document, which guards against all arbitrariness 
on the part of the pastors. This was to disarm the Ellingians, who 
were wont to compare the lordliness of the pastors with their own 
“free” system. It was also to reassure those who honestly ques- 
tioned the wisdom of entrusting too much power to such pastors as 
Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson. 

In 1851 the Koshkonong group received some very substantial 
reinforcements. Rev. A. C. Preus in Maanedstidende for April, 
1851, reported that he had just heard from Dietrichson in Norway 
that the candidate in theology, Herman Amberg Preus, had accepted 
a call to Spring Prairie, Bonnet Prairie, and Norway Grove. Few 
at the time realized the importance of this man’s coming. In him 
the Norwegian Evangelical Church of America, later known as the 
Norwegian Synod, was to have its chief and leader for a whole 


“ Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 6s. 
“For the Haugean fight on Weelsism or Wexels liren see Halvdan Koht, 
“Fra en norsk kirkestrid,” in Symra, 1907, 59-70. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 117 


generation. In 1862 he was elected the president of the body, a posi- 
tion he held until his death in 1894. 

Rev. J. A. Bergh gives a noteworthy characterization of this 
man, which is well worthy of a place here: 


Rev. H. A. Preus possibly does not possess the dialectic ability of 
his great co-laborer, Jacob Aall Ottesen, is not a diplomat like Rev. 
V. Koren, or an eloquent preacher like P. A. Rasmussen, or a per- 
sistent worker like Prof. Laur. Larsen, or a quick thinker like B. J. 
Muus, or as learned as Prof. F. A. Schmidt; but H. A. Preus is a 
well-balanced pilot, who, with a powerful hand and a clear eye, 
guides the ship of the church toward the desired goal. He is logical 
in his thought, orderly in his speech, friendly but decisive in his 
deportment, and is orthodox to the very tips of his fingers. He 
belongs to that class of Norwegian theologians who have completely 
broken with the old rationalism without at the same time being 
touched by the Johnsonian awakening, hence does not value highly 
the Haugean movement. Haugeans did not always come up to his 
standard of orthodoxy, and for Preus it was pure doctrine that is of 
greatest importance. Accordingly, he has a sharp eye for every 
error, actual or imagined. For him it becomes the great object 
of the Norwegian Synod to gather the Lutheran Christians about 
the revealed truth and defend it against every error. No deviation 
can be tolerated. In this his co-laborers faithfully helped him. 
Koren, Larsen, Ottesen belong to the same theological school and 
they aid each other faithfully in the fight. Muus comes from more 
pietistic circles, but he soon falls in line with the others. With these 
men at the helm, the course of the Norwegian Synod is determined 
for years to come.” 


Another pastor, Rev. Nils Brandt, came to America in the same 
year on a call from the Pine Lake congregations, though he was soon 
to be sent to Iowa on a missionary journey. He later became a 
professor at Luther College.* 

Another accession this year was Rev. G. F. Dietrichson, who is 
not to be confused with Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, who left America 
for good in 1850. Rev. G. F. Dietrichson took Rev. C. L. Clausen’s 
place at Luther Valley, the latter retiring from the active ministry 
for the ten years 1851-1861 on account of bad health. Clausen, 


#37. A. Bergh, op. cit., 80. For biography see Livsbilleder fra den lutherske 
kirke 1 Amerika (Decorah, Iowa), 57. 

4 The following information is found in Prestekalenderen, 98; Brandt, 
Nils Olsen, ord. 1851; outside 1851-52, Nor. Synod, 1853-82. B. in W. Slidre, 
Valdres, Hamar, January 29, 1824; received private instruction, to U. of 
Christiania 1844-49 (A.B., A.M., C.T.), emigrated 1851, clergyman near 
Watertown (Rock River), Wis., 1851-65, missionary in N. E. Iowa and 
Minnesota 1851-53 (first pastor from Norway west of Mississippi), pastor, 
Decorah, Iowa, 1865-82, prof. of languages and religion, Luther College, 
1865-82, one of six (seven) pastors who organized the Norwegian Synod, 
1853, v.p. same, 1857-71, member of church council, 1857-84, since 1835 he has 
lived with his son, Rev. R. O. Brandt, co-editor of Kuirketidende, 1869-77. 
M. to Diderikke Ottesen, 1856 (d. 85). Brandt died August 13, 1921. 


118 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


however, continued to take a very lively interest in the church 
body that was being formed, though his removal to St. Ansgar, 
Iowa, in 1853 prevented him from taking part in its conven- 
tion from that time until 1861. The year thus marked three 
accessions and one retirement, making the list of pastors six besides 
Clausen.*® 

In accordance with the motion passed at the convention of 1851, 
the congregations met for renewed consultations at Muskego, Febru- 
ary I, 1852. As it was Sunday, divine service was held, at which 
Rev. H. A. Stub preached and Rev. C. L. Clausen offered prayer. 
On Monday, February 2, when the meeting was called to order, it 
was found that there were, besides the three pastors, Stub, Clausen 
and A. C. Preus, ten representatives from six congregations who 
could claim a seat in the convention.’® 

Although the delegates at the Luther Valley meeting in 1851 un- 
doubtedly had dispersed with the feeling that they had taken definite 
and binding action, yet Rev. A. C. Preus arose as soon as the Mus- 
kego meeting of 1852 was organized and introduced this striking 
motion: 


Moved that the decisions of the church convention held in Luther 
Valley church, accepted by the present synod as its church organiza- 
tion, be regarded as mere preliminary motions; and that the members 
of the present synod join with the pastors and delegates from the 
congregations that have not yet joined the synod, in order to review 
and test the synodical constitution.” 


In support of his motion, he called attention to the fact that the 
three pastors who had arrived from Norway in the course of the last 
year had had no share in the formation of the proposed body, and 
that there were many representatives from congregations outside the 
present body who should have a part in laying the foundation of the 
synod. ‘The motion carried unanimously. 

This startling motion actually dissolved the church that was 
established in 1851 and, with one stroke, made the work of Clausen, 
Stub, and A. C. Preus crumble. Only the direst need would war- 
rant such drastic action, and that need arose as a result of adopting 
Revie ayia. Dietrichson’s Grundtvigian constitution. This had 


“The Prestekalenderen has the following: Dietrichson, Gustav Fredrik, 
ord. 1851, outside 1851-52, Nor. Synod 1853-59, b. in Christianssand, Norway, 
October 8, 1813, of Lieut. Col. Erasmus D. and Marie, to U. of Christiania 
1833-42 (A.M. C.T.), teacher at Stavanger 1842-51, emigrated 1851: clergy- 
man, Luther Valley, Wis., 1851-59, one of six (seven) pastors to found the 
Nor. Synod, 1853. Returned to Norway, 1859, member of church council 
1853-59, d. 1886. 

*'The minutes of this meeting were printed in Maanedstidende, April, 
1852, 5. They are more conveniently found in H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, 50. 

™ Text in Maanedstidende, April, 1852, 5. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 119 


the words in our baptismal covenant and,'* and since Dietrichson 
had taken care to have paragraph two, in which they occurred, made 
unamendable, the members of the convention of 1851 had perma- 
nently committed themselves to Grundtvigianism. Rev. H. A. Preus, 
Rev. N. O. Brandt, and Rev. G. F. Dietrichson would therefore have 
nothing to do with the proposed organization; neither would a large 
number of congregations. H. A. Preus and J. W. C. Dietrichson, for 
instance, at their very first encounter in Christiania, Norway, in 1850, 
had a very heated argument concerning this Grundtvigian clause 
which Dietrichson had inserted into the constitution he had written 
for the congregations which he established. Preus vowed that he 
would have this clause removed as the congregations—as Dietrichson 
also admitted—did not know its implications.‘ H. A. Preus, Brandt, 
and G. F. Dietrichson represented the ascendant tide of anti-Grundt- 
vigianism under the leadership of Prof. Gisle Johnson at Christiania. 
Since these men and a number of congregations would not accept 
the Grundtvigian clause in the constitution of 1851, the only alterna- 
tive was for those who had formulated this constitution to declare 
it null and void and start over again. This they unanimously de- 
cided to do. 

The three pastors and ten delegates who opened the session were 
now joined by Rev. G. F. Dietrichson, Luther Valley; Rev. H. A. 
Preus, Spring Prairie; Rev. N. Brandt, Rock River and Pine Lake; 
and twenty-six delegates, so that, when the meeting convened again 
after its short dissolution, it consisted of six pastors and thirty- 
six delegates from twenty-one congregations. This body imme- 
diately fell into a temporary deadlock on the election of a chairman, 
Rev. C. L. Clausen and Rev. G. F. Dietrichson receiving the same 
number of votes. After some sort of misunderstanding had been 
cleared away, a new ballot was cast, and this time A. C. Preus 
received twenty-five votes for chairman and Dietrichson fourteen 
votes for vice-chairman. Rules of order were next adopted, and a 
nomination committee of ten was elected. Dietrichson moved that 
the deliberations of this convention should be considered preliminary 
also. When it was objected that this would entail waste of time, 
he replied that it was better to take time for deliberation rather than 
make mistakes by precipitous action. The convention voted to “sleep 
on it” and adjourned. 

After a very short sleep indeed, the convention began its ses- 


* The objection to this phrase was that it placed the baptismal covenant on 
a par with Scripture. The Grundtvigians held that the Apostolic Creed, 
used in the baptismal covenant, was divinely inspired, hence the key to the 
interpretation of the Bible. 

A. Preus, Professorerne Oefstedals og Weenaas’s “Wisconsimsme”’ 
betragtet t Sandhedens Lys. Et. Gjensvar til Professor Weenaas (Decorah, 
Iowa, 1875); 6, note. When A. C. Preus’s attention was called to this 
Grundtvigian clause, he not only heartily repudiated it, but also wrote two 
articles in Stavanger Amstidende against it. His excuse was that he had too 
readily adopted Dietrichson’s draft of 1849. 


120 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


sion by prayer, song, and Scripture reading on Tuesday, February 
3, at six in the morning. Dietrichson’s motion was discussed and 
passed with one dissenting vote (Ole Vraastad’s). 

A number of motions calling for the appointment of a series of 
committees were then passed.?° As these illustrate the problems con- 
fronting this young church, they are worthy of our attention. 

Rey. A. C. Preus led off with four motions calling for the estab- 
lishment of certain committees. His first motion was to have a 
committee consider and report upon the matter of a closer affiliation 
with the Joint Ohio (Lutheran) Synod. In this connection, ar- 
rangements might be made to use this synod’s university at Colum- 
bus, Ohio. His next motion called for special investigation as to 
whether something might not be done for the awakening of more 
spiritual life in the congregations. A third motion called for a 
memorial to the Wisconsin legislature regarding the use of the oath 
in the formula of marriage. His fourth motion looked to the amend- 
ment of the Ritual of the Church of Denmark and Norway to meet 
the exigencies imposed by American conditions, especially in con- 
nection with the solemnization of marriage. 

Rev. G. F. Dietrichson moved that a pastoral committee be elected 
whose duty it should be to procure ordained ministers from Norway 
to take up work among their countrymen in America, and to place 
these ministers at the most strategic points. 

Rev. C. L. Clausen moved that something be done to bring about 
a union of the Lutheran forces among the Norwegians. In answer 
to discouraging, but very self-evident, assertions that in case the 
others had desired union they would now have attended and assisted 
in the work of organizing this synod, Clausen replied that every- 
thing possible nevertheless should be done. The others concurred, 
Dietrichson making a warm plea for a united Norwegian Lutheran- 
ism. 
On motion by Rev. H. A. Preus, it was decided to elect a com- 
mittee whose duty it should be to take care of the affairs of the 
Synod between this and the next meetings. After the committee 
on nominations had proposed an acceptable list of candidates for 
each position on all of these committees, the convention proceeded to 
its chief business, the review of the constitution.*? 

Paragraph one, containing the name, was retained unchanged. 

Not so with paragraph two. In this occurred the words, in our 
baptismal covenant and, to which H. A. Preus strenuously objected 
on the grounds that they were Grundtvigian, and further, that no 
support whatsoever could be found for this doctrine either in the 
Bible or in the Confessions of the Lutheran Church. Far be it from 
this small organization to presume to add to or detract from the Con- 
fessions of the Church, especially since such action would only en- 
gender strife and contention. H. A. Preus observed that, although he 


* These motions are found in Maanedstidende, April, 1852, 7, 8. 
™ These proceedings are recorded in Maanedstidende, April, 1852, 9-16. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES I21 


not only had voted for the constitution of 1851, but also had these 
very words in his congregational constitution at Koshkonong, yet he 
would willingly make this change. Rev. N. Brandt would vote with 
Rev. H. A. Preus, as his views were not expressed in the paragraph 
as it was formulated in 1851. They decided to defer action till the 
morrow. 

In regard to paragraph three, Stub wanted to put, in the place 
of “churchly ordination to the clerical office,” the words, “Ordained 
in the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church.”’ Gulbrand Myhre 
thought that the sense of the substitute was contained in the first 
draft. H. A. Preus moved that these words be added to the para- 
graph: “In case a pastor from another synod, who is properly 
examined, rightly called, and given churchly ordination to the clerical 
office, wishes to enter our church, he shall take the Norwegian pas- 
toral oath, so amended as the chief authorities of our church may 
deem necessary.’ Stub stood by his motion, saying that it was of 
great importance that all the pastors in the same church had the same 
education and development, as a uniformity of work would thereby 
be enhanced. It was decided to postpone action till the next day. 

No debates of any importance took place regarding paragraphs 
four, five, six, seven, and eight. Since we expect to give these in 
their final form later, we shall not stop to consider them here. The 
meeting on Tuesday adjourned with hymn singing and prayer. 

On Wednesday, February 4, H. A. Preus repeated his motion 
that m our baptismal covenant and be struck out of paragraph two. 
All voted for this except Clausen, who declared that the paragraph 
as originally formulated expressed his convictions on this point.?? 

Stub brought forth anew his motion requiring of prospective 
pastors that they be ordained in the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran 
Church. A. C. Preus opposed this, saying that it gave rise to doubt 
as to Clausen’s right to be a pastor in the church, seeing he had not 
had the ordination prescribed by this motion. On the whole, it 
seemed to conflict with the churchly conception of ordination.?? Stub 
maintained that he did not have Clausen in mind as Clausen’s ordi- 
nation had been expressly declared valid. Further, this motion was 
not to have a retroactive force, but was to serve as a precaution 
against the admission of poorly qualified sectarian ministers, who 
might, in the future, desire to enter the church. Stub’s motion was 
rejected with only one vote for it (presumably Stub’s own vote). 
Stub then tried to make an addition to H. A. Preus’s motion, but 
this also was rejected with only one vote for it. 

Out of the contests on this fateful Wednesday there emerged 

™Prudence, and possibly the desire on all sides to maintain peace, might 
have prevented an open rupture on this point at this time. Clausen’s retire- 
ment from the ministry might also have done something to stave off the evil 
day. At any rate, it was fortunate that a controversy was not precipitated at 
this time, as the young body was unable to stand the strain. 


** Possibly this was a keen-edged thrust at Stub’s supposedly Grandtvigian 
“churchly conception.” 


122 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


clearly and distinctly the potent influence of Rev. H. A. Preus, 
which was already making itself felt. He had forced the annulment 
of the constitution of 1851 and had, despite Clausen’s protests, in- 
serted anti-Grundtvigian clauses into the new draft. Stub’s sup- 
posed Grundtvigian “churchly conception” had been rejected, and 
Stub himself had been humiliated. To forestall any combined coun- 
ter action by Stub and Clausen, the Preuses, as we shall presently 
see, managed to drive a wedge between them by supporting Clausen’s 
motion regarding conversion after death. Stub took his rebuffs with 
good grace, permitting the convention to go on undisturbed with 
its work. Paragraphs nine, ten, eleven, and twelve were discussed 
and, after a few minor changes had been made, were accepted sub- 
stantially in their original form. 

In the consideration of the seventeen by-laws, a very interesting 
question arose in connection with No. 5, which deals with the lan- 
guage question and Christian education. The Synod went on record 
as being opposed to a hasty and precipitate transition from Norwe- 
gian to English, it being thought that the transition could be made 
much more safely by a gradual and natural process.2* A child 
should learn Norwegian first, and then, at about the age of thirteen, 
begin the study of English. In their opinion, both the discipline 
and the spirit of the “common school” were disturbing factors in 
the proper Christian nurture of the child.2> Thus we see that both 
the language question and the question of elementary Christian edu- 
cation is as old as the Norwegian American Lutheran Church, yes, 
older. 

In connection with the other by-laws many interesting points 
were made, but the by-laws in most instances remained essentially 
unchanged. 

Of the Special Synodical Decisions,?® one is especially note- 
worthy. Rev. C. L. Clausen repeated his motion of the former year 
against conversion after death, adding the clause that the persons 
who held these views should be excluded from the church and that the 
books containing this doctrine should be condemned. He further 
proposed that this article be made irrevocable. Although this motion 
was regarded by some as superfluous, because the acceptance of the 
Confessions of the Lutheran Church in itself constituted a con- 
demnation of this doctrine, it was passed as a reassurance that the 

* This undoubtedly was a conscious or unconscious rap at Paul Anderson, 
who, by might or main, sought to bring these as yet unsettled immigrants over 
into the English. On his side, Paul Anderson got additional water on his mill 
from this, to him, very extreme “Norwegian” attitude of the Synod pastors. 

® There was possibly much to this. The teachers were undoubtedly poorly 
prepared for teaching and were unable to enforce the strict discipline that 
these emigrants from a highly developed cultural and literary nation demanded. 
There had been a tendency also on the part of some of these “eight-graders” 
to look down upon immigrants as being ignorant simply because they did not 
know the language of the land. Such highly educated and qualified men as 


these, several of whom had the master of arts degrees, naturally resented this. 
° Maanedstidende, May, 1852, 5. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 123 


Synod did not so teach. This motion was aimed directly at Rev. 
H. A. Stub, who later confessed that he had erred on this point. 
Stub, who had been called away on a sick call that afternoon, was at 
this time spared further humiliation, although the Ellingian attack 
and Clausen’s belligerent attitude on this point gave Stub no rest 
until he had finally set himself right in regard to this. Rev. N. 
Brandt did not vote because he thought that adequate safeguards 
had been put up, and that it was not for a small synod out here to 
add to the Symbols of the Lutheran Church. He might also have 
been out of sympathy with the motive or spirit back of the motion. 

The committees, called for by the various motions above, were 
ready to report. 

The committee on union with the Joint Ohio Synod reported ?? 
that it was deemed a matter of courtesy to reply to Prof. Reynold’s 
address to the Synod, but no affiliation could take place at this time 
for two reasons: (1) This meeting is only of a preparatory nature; 
(2) The synod is not in possession of sufficient knowledge of the 
Joint Ohio Synod to make a proper estimate of its doctrine and 
practice. A motion to send delegates to this synod’s meetings to 
study it at first hand was voted down on the plea that the money 
that would be required for this could be applied more profitably to 
the struggling mission work among the Norwegians. Possibly they 
realized to some extent what a tremendous influence synodical affilia- 
tions were to have on the character of the church. 

Nothing illustrates the religious ideals of these earnest Chris- 
tians more vividly than the resolutions adopted regarding ways and 
means of awakening spiritual life in the congregations. 


1. The assembly considers it to be the duty of every Christian 
family to have the Bible in its house. 

2. It is the duty of every householder or housewife to read morn- 
ings and evenings to their children and servants from the Scrip- 
tures, or other books of edification, and in connection with this have 
prayer and song. 

3. It is the duty of every householder or housewife to keep a 
vigilant eye upon his or her children’s or servant’s conduct, that 
these do not take too many liberties; also, as far as possible, keep 
them from the common immoralities such as “night-hawking,” public 
dancing parties, gambling parties, drinking bouts, cursing, swearing, 
breaking the Sabbath, and so on. 

4. As far as time.permits, the pastors should visit the homes to 
educate, encourage, and admonish their parishioners, and to institute, 
as far as possible, family devotion and family discipline. 

5. In the absence of the pastor, the congregations should have 
devotional meetings, for reading the Bible or some of the best 
postils, for having inspirational and edifying conversations, or for 
having other forms of divine service. 


™ Thid., May, 1852, 6. A. C. Preus had a series of articles on this subject 
in Maanedstidende for July and August, 1852. 


124 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


6. Sunday schools and other religious day schools should be 
instituted for the instruction and edification of the young. 

7. Congregation libraries, containing not only edifying books of 
devotion, but also other good and useful publications, ought to be 
established.” 


The committee to memorialize the legislature concerning the use 
of the oath in the marriage rite reported that they did not have suffi- 
cient information concerning the matter for intelligent action.?® 
They recommended that the temporary church officials take action in 
the matter. It is interesting to note how vigilant these men—most 
of whom were from the ruling classes in Norway-—were in regard 
to their liberties in America. There was good material for first-class 
citizenship in this group.*° 

The committee for the procuring and placing of missionary pas- 
tors reported that there was great need of a pastor to serve both 
New York and Chicago.*+ 

The committee on temporary church government recommended *? 
that a 


temporary church government be established, whose duty it shall be 
to take care of the matters which this convention might refer to it, 
receive the declarations of the congregations regarding the proposed 
constitution, deliver opinions concerning questions raised by the 
different congregations, issue a call in due season for the next meet- 
ing of the Synod, and carry on necessary correspondence from the 
adjournment of the present, to the opening of the next, Synod.” 


This, then, concludes the work of this very important meeting. 
Evenings were usually given over to committee work, but when 
otherwise convenient, sermons were preached. One sermon by Rey. 
A. C. Preus, in which he deplored the split in the ranks of the Nor- 
wegian Lutherans in this country, brought a request for a colloquy 


* Maanedstidende, May, 1852, 5. 

Ti L0idg Way aboot, 

* Very few groups have more heroically defended the principle of the 
separation of Church and State than the Norwegian Lutherans. Dr. Oscar L. 
Olson, president of Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, brings out the wonderful 
harmony existing between the Augsburg Confession, written in 1530, and the 
American Constitution, framed two and a half centuries later. He says: 
“The Augsburg Confession, which was composed more than 250 years before 
our Federal Constitution was framed, says: “These two governments, the 
civil and ecclesiastical, ought not to be mingled and confounded. ... We 
distinguish between the two powers, the civil and ecclesiastical, and recom- 
mend that both of them be held in honor as the highest gifts of God.’ The 
Constitution of the Umted States says, in the First Amendment: ‘Congress 
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religian or prohibiting the 
free exercise thereof.” “These two statements,’ Dr. Olson adds, “are in 
such perfect agreement that they might have been written by the same 
individual.” (Lutheran Church Herald, 1922, 1006 ff.) 

* Maanedstidende, May, 1852, 7. 

* [bid., May, 1852, 9. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 125 


by certain men who had left the Muskego congregation and joined 
Ole Andrewsen. The colloquy was fruitless, but it is interesting to 
note that the matter of union came up as well outside of the regular 
sessions as during them.*$ 

In looking back at this meeting, one cannot but marvel at the 
careful and proper attention given all details. These six pastors 
were men who were capable of carrying on a meeting with the ut- 
most precision, thanks to their careful training at the Royal Fredrik 
University, Christiania, where several of them had received their 
masters’ degrees before taking up their theological studies; and 
thanks also to the fact that they were men who came from families 
in Norway that had been prominent for centuries in the affairs of 
Church and State. On the wild Western plains family connections 
were often scoffed at, probably in self-defense by those who had 
none; but even here it made a difference whether one had attained 
to poise and broad sympathies through family connections that for 
centuries had been accustomed to rule, or had merely assumed a 
bluff importance to hide his lack of the finer qualities of leadership, 
which similarly had been acquired through living in families which 
for centuries had been accustomed to obey rather than command. 
These men of education and good breeding could graciously yield on 
several points where those who were less assured of themselves 
could not yield without loss of dignity. This psychological factor, 
which had made it impossible for Eielsen to yield to his friends when 
they received some amount of education, made it possible for A. C. 
Preus, Stub, and (partly) Clausen to yield graciously in regard to 
such matters as paragraph two of the constitution. This high type 
of men, leaders both by virtue of family and education, had launched 
the synod, and had provided for the orderly exercise of its func- 
tions until the next convention should be convened. 

But, of course, it was too much to expect that the carefully 
planned work of the convention should meet with universal ap- 
proval among the Norwegians—they were by nature so critical that 
nothing short of a miracle could accomplish this. From several 
quarters, the results of these deliberations were attacked most bit- 
terly both in general and in detail. Since the powerful laymen at 
Muskego had regarded this movement with disfavor from the first, 
they had taken only a perfunctory part in the whole proceedings, 
probably because the movement seemed to give promise of success 
regardless of whether they participated or not. A certain Sorly 
made a very bitter attack upon these endeavors to unite the congrega- 
tions as being only one more effort to introduce clerical tyranny. In 
these attacks the rival Norwegian synods (i.e. Eielsen’s and the 
Northern Illinois) joined most heartily.*4 

Efforts were made to bring about a better understanding with 
Eielsen immediately after the adjournment of the above-reported 

* Tbid., May, 1852, 10. 

* Ibid., September, 1852, 5. 


126 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


meeting.*®> At first it seemed that some success would attend this, 
as Eielsen’s Synod appointed a committee to meet with the tem- 
porary officers of the Koshkonong synod. ‘These met June 21, 
1852, at Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin, and agreed that “love and 
forbearance shall now take the place of the former strife and back- 
biting.” °° This was greeted as a joyful sign, but fourteen days had 
barely passed when Eielsen, on the fifth Sunday after Trinity, 
preached a Confirmation sermon at Spring Prairie at which the con- 
gregations of the “great mass” and their pastors were alluded to 
in a very plain and offensive manner.*’ After the short truce had 
thus been broken, the battle was waged with renewed energy, not 
least by Eielsen.** In this struggle it is only very natural that the 
deliberations of the convention’ of 1852, which was the most cher- 
ished product of the Koshkonong group’s genius, should come in 
for very bitter attack. 

While rival synods and others regarded the action of the conven- 
tion of 1852 as a real menace—not to themselves, of course, but to 
the cause of true Lutheranism!—the Joint Ohio and other synods 
looked upon it with undissimulated admiration. For the Lutheran 
Standard of July 28, 1852, Dr. Reynolds furnished translations of 
very full excerpts from the constitution and by-laws of 1852, the 
paragraphs about doctrine, church order, church discipline, and pa- 
rochial school especially being emphasized and approved.** The 
Ohioans were particularly desirous of having the Norwegians estab- 
lish a professorship at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. They 
commended their caution in taking plenty of time to write and test 
their constitution, and added that they had 


received a very favorable impression of the ability which is shown 
for self-government and for transacting business. . . . We surmise 
[they add] that this had its source not only in the intelligence of the 
pastors, but also in the political conditions and character of the 
Norwegian people, inasmuch as they very rightly have been called 
“the Yankees of the North,” and have the freest government and 
most democratic spirit of all the peoples of Europe. 


Consequently, the laymen are given a very full share in the govern- 
ment of the church. Of course, the Standard doubted the advisabil- 
ity of having the same pastor serve both New York and Chicago. 
Otherwise, it regarded the Norwegians and their church plans with 
genuine enthusiasm. These compliments were made much sweeter 


* Ibid., February, 1853, 10 in the President’s report. 

é * Ibid., February, 1853, 10. For resolution see Maanedstidende, July, 
1852, 9. 

* Reported by P. H. Stromme in an article signed Spring Prairie, August 
16, 1852. His statements were corroborated by the signatures of Lars 
Johannesen Moen and Christopher Amundsen Grone. 

*® Maanedstidende, February, 1853, I0. 

*° Tbid., September, 1853, 4. The Missionary reprinted Dr. Reynold’s report. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 127 


to the Koshkonong group by the thought that the Standard had on 
a former occasion read the Northern Illinois group out of the 
Lutheran Church. 

Back of this interest on the part of the Joint Ohio Synod was 
undoubtedly their hope that the Koshkonong group would fall in line 
with their ambitious plans which looked toward the leadership of 
middle-western Lutheranism. The Joint Ohio might have realized 
its plans had it not been for a small party of Saxons who in 1839 
settled near St. Louis, Missouri, and in 1847, with Rev. Carl Fried- 
rich Wilhelm Walther at the head, launched what became the power- 
ful “Missouri” Synod. Walther’s dominating personality was to 
exert an extraordinary influence on the Lutheran Church in Amer- 
ica; as yet, however, the Norwegians were acquainted neither with 
Walther nor the Saxons. 

In the meantime, the plans of affiliation stranded on other reefs. 
Like other early Lutheran synods, Ohio had shown indifference to- 
ward Lutheran doctrine and practice, in that it had sought union with 
the German-Reformed Church.*° As proof that it had changed its 
practice on this point, Ohio now wished at every turn to impress 
upon the Norwegians the fact that it not only subscribed to the Augs- 
burg Confession, but also accepted the other Symbolical writings in 
the Book of Concord as true expositions of the doctrines of 
the Augsburg Confession. Another point that worried the Norwe- 
gians was that the catalog of Capital University gave the impression 
that the Ohioans took a broad secular view of the work at their col- 
lege and that they introduced Luther’s Catechism and other religious 
instruction only as something extra. On the university board sat 
men who were not Lutherans, thus furnishing no guarantee for the 
appointment of Lutheran teachers.*? 

In 1852 a most valuable addition was made to the pastoral list. 
In this year Jacob Aall Ottesen came to take up the pastorate at Mani- 
towoc, Wisconsin. Born in 1825, he became a candidate from Chris- 
tiania University in 1840, and after three years as teacher at Nissen’s 
Latin School, emigrated to his future field of useful labors in the 
state of Wisconsin.4#2 A man of keen critical powers, and a dialec- 
tician with only one or two equals in the church, he naturally began 
from the very first to play an important part in the meetings of the 
Synod. Had his health permitted, he would undoubtedly have forged 
his way to the very highest positions of trust. As it was, he was 
editor of Kirkelig Maanedstidende for several years, secretary of the 
Synod, and, in spite of his emphatic refusal to serve, was elected 
to be professor of theology and president of the Eastern District of 
the Synod. He remained firm in his refusals in both cases, but this 


“” Maanedstidende, October, 1852, 8 and 9. For Ohio side see Maaneds- 
tidende, December, 1852, eh 
* Lbid., October, 1852, 8. 
* Biographies of him can be found in H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, Livsbilleder, 
and O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester i Amerika. 


128 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


merely goes to show that the year 1852, though not rich in the num- 
ber of pastors it brought, still was rich in the qualities that this one 
man brought. 

In other respects the work of the Koshkonong group was grow- 
ing apace. According to the president’s report in February, 1853, 
thirty-eight congregations belonged to the group.** Of these, three 
were in Illinois, four in Iowa, and thirty-one in Wisconsin; of 
these, again, six had been organized since the meeting of 1852. Es- 
timating very conservatively that there were three hundred members 
in each congregation, Rev. A. C. Preus found that there were 11,400 
souls belonging to the churches. Not only were they growing in 
numbers and membership, but the congregations were also becoming 
more wealthy. New churches were dedicated at Rock Run and Ham- 
ilton; ** and in the Koshkonong charge, the West congregation had 
built two fine new brick and stone churches, which were sixty-three 
by forty-two by twenty feet.*° 

As the congregations multiplied, the need for pastors was felt 
more keenly. To meet their growing needs, the congregations at 
Paint Creek, Norway Settlement, Clermont, and Little Iowa in Al- 
lamakee, Fayette, and Winneshiek Counties, Iowa, authorized the 
committee on pastors to procure for them a suitable man.** In this 
the committee was eminently successful, as it procured no less a 
man than the promising Ulrich Vilhelm Koren, who, with his wife, 
Elizabeth, arrived in America on Christmas day, 1853, too late to 
take part in the momentous meetings of 1853, to be sure, and yet in 
plenty of time to become the chief literary defender and expounder 
of the group’s aims and ideals. Born December 22, 1826, at Bergen, 
Norway, he was graduated from that city’s cathedral school in 1844, 
and from Christiania University as a candidate of theology in 1852. 
He taught for a year at Nissen’s Latin School but soon became in- 
terested in America. Accordingly, in 1853, he was married to Else 
Elizabeth Hysing, was ordained, and emigrated to America, where 
he took up his abode at Washington Prairie, near Decorah, Iowa. 
Here he lived until his death in 1910. He was secretary of the Nor- 
wegian Synod, vice-president and president of the Iowa District of 
the Norwegian Synod, and from 1894 to 1910 president of the Nor- 
wegian Synod. For years he was the chief champion of the Synod’s 
position and has been called the ablest statesman of the church up to 
the time of his death in 1910, In the course of the many battles he 
clearly, and in a very far-sighted manner, enunciated principles that 
should outlive his time and day. But, as above mentioned, Koren 
came too late to take part in the momentous meetings of 1853, though 
the news of his coming was very encouraging to the pastors and dele- 
gates. 


* Maanedstidende, February, 1853, 11. The term “superintendent” was soon 
dropped in favor of a more common “president.” 

“ Maanedstidende, August, 1852, 6 and February, II. 

“ Tbid., October, 1852, 13. * Tbid., February, 1853, 10, 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 129 


On February 5, 1853, the congregations had a meeting at East 
Koshkonong, at which were present the seven pastors: A. C. Preus, 
Ge EH Dietrichson, He Ay otuby Co lL Clausen) N. Brandt,, HOA, 
Preus, and J. A. Ottesen. Besides these there were forty-two rep- 
resentatives from twenty-eight congregations. After having gone 
through preliminaries similar to those at the first meetings, A. C. 
Preus was reélected temporary president. The constitution was 
taken up for renewed discussion, and in response to a request for 
possible changes nineteen such changes were handed in and given 
over to a committee. On February Io the committee reported, and 
all that day and the next were consumed in the discussions. At A. C. 
Preus’s suggestion, it was decided that the constitution should now 
be submitted to the congregations for approval, and that a meeting of 
those who subscribed should be called for October, 1853.47 Un- 
fortunately, Maanedstidende gives no further comments, but simply 
reprints the constitution which the congregations accepted. But Rev. 
H. Halvorsen has satisfactorily proved that the meeting decided 
upon at East Koshkonong was held at Luther Valley, Wisconsin, 
October 3-7, 1853.48 At this meeting were present those who ac- 
cepted the constitution, namely, the seven pastors and representatives 
from seventeen congregations. Thus was the work of organization 
completed, and what later was known as The Norwegian Synod, 
or simply the Synod, became a reality after four years of patient 
endeavor. 

The constitution as finally adopted reads: 


I. The name of the church shall be “The Norwegian Evangelical 
Lutheran Church of America.” 

2. The doctrine of the church is that which is revealed through 
God’s holy Word in the canonical books of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, interpreted in agreement with the Symbolical Books or Con- 
fessional Writings of the Norwegian Church, which are: (1) The 
Apostolic Creed, (2) The Nicene Creed, (3) The Athanasian Creed, 
(4) the unaltered Augsburg Confession which was delivered to 
Emperor Charles V at Augsburg 1530, (5) Luther’s Small 
Catechism. 

3. This church acknowledges no one to be a clergyman except he 
be properly examined, rightly called, and given churchly ordination 
into the pastoral office. 

4. In case a pastor, who brings testimonials which satisfy the 
church council that he is properly examined and rightly called, and 
that he had churchly ordination into the pastoral office, wishes to be 
admitted as a pastor into our synod from another church body, then 
he must submit to the same tests as the church demands of its other 
pastors, and must also take the Norwegian pastoral oath with such 


“1A very complete report of this deliberation is found in Maanedstidende, 
for February, March, and in an extra edition of the same paper for August, 
1853. i 

* 1. Halvorsen, op. cit., 67-78. H. A. Preus, Wisconsimsme, 5, says it was 
at Koshkonong, but this is very likely a lapse of memory. 


130 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


changes as the church determines. Such a test may be waived in the 
case of pastors from the evangelical Lutheran Churches of Norway, 
Sweden, and Denmark. 

5. The Ritual of the Church of Denmark and Norway from 1685 
and the Altar Book used in these kingdoms are recognized as binding 
by this church, but with such modifications as the Synod may 
determine. 

6. The polity of the church shall be synodical-presbyterial, so 
that every other year a synod or church convention is held, this to 
be the church’s highest authority. 

7. The Synod is composed of the pastors of the church and the 
duly elected delegates from each congregation which is united with 
the church. 

Note. The congregations that have no connection with the Synod, 
but whose doctrine and church order are in agreement with the 
Synod, are permitted to send delegates who are granted the right 
to make direct motions and at their introduction offer arguments 
why they should be adopted. The Synod can thereafter decide for 
itself whether these delegates shall be permitted to take further part 
in the discussion of their own motions. 

8. The congregations connected with the Synod shall elect from 
their own midst delegates in the following proportions: For every 
one hundred confirmed members one representative is sent, yet in 
such a way that no congregations must send more than three. These 
delegates must present credentials from the congregations that they 
represent. 

9. The Synod shall have the power: (1) to give general and 
special rules in all religious-ecclesiastical matters; (2) in the last 
instance to judge in all church matters; (3) from among the pastors 
of the church to elect a president for the church; (4) to elect a 
church council composed of three pastoral and three lay members. 

10. The President is: (1) the chairman of the Synod; (2) one 
of the ordained members of the church council and its president; 
(3) and as such it devolves on him to carry out all the rules and 
decisions of the Synod and the church council and to execute the 
judgments of the Synod and the church council. 

11. The duties of the church council are: (1) to keep an eye on 
the pastors’ deportment and the execution of their official duties; 
(2) in the first instance to pass judgment in all religious-ecclesias- 
tical matters; (3) when important matters demand it, to call an 
extraordinary meeting of the Synod. If there are any matters requir- 
ing attention, the church council meets twice a year on the third 
Wednesday in March and the third Wednesday in October, at such 
places as the president finds most convenient and concerning which 
he, through the secretary of the church council, must give due notice 
to all members of the church council as well as to the public in 
general. The deliberations of the church council are made public 
after each meeting. 

12. When a congregation wishes to join the church, it shall send 
in an application to the president of the church council, this applica- 
tion to be signed by the congregation’s board, consisting of the 
pastor and his assistants or deacons. In this application it must be 
specifically stated that the congregation subscribes to the constitution 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 131 


of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and 
also to its other rules and regulations. It is, however, reserved to 
every individual congregation to have its own rules for its govern- 
ment, so long as these do not conflict with the constitution and regu- 
lations of the church. When a congregation wishes to sever its 
connection with the church, it must through its congregational board 
notify the president of the church council to that effect. 

13. It is the Christian and churchly duty of every congregation 
belonging to the church to establish and maintain religious schools 
to secure for the young instruction in the fundamentals of 
Christianity. 

14. Every question concerning the church’s discipline and doctrine 
which is brought before the Synod for action, is decided in the fol- 
lowing way: The delegates to the Synod elect from their midst a 
number equal to the number of clerical members present, who then 
jointly decide the matter by vote. In case of a tie, the president of 
the Synod casts the deciding vote. 

15. With the exception of paragraph two and three, which for- 
ever shall remain unchangeable and irrevocable, and four, which 
can be changed only when three consecutive synod conventions have 
voted for the proposed change, this constitution or any part of it 
can be changed in the following manner: The proposed change shall 
be submitted to a convention of the church, and if this by a majority 
vote approves the change, then it shall within three months be com- 
municated to all the congregations connected with the church through 
their president or board, and thereupon be taken up for renewed 
consideration at the following church convention; and if the proposal 
is again approved by a majority vote, it becomes a law.” 


By-LAws 


In the by-laws it was specified that the president of the synod 
(paragraph one), the church council (paragraph two), every pastor 
(paragraph three), and every congregation (paragraph four) shall 
keep a full record of all official correspondence and of all official 
acts, each in his (or its) own way. Then follows: 


5. Every congregation of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran 
Church of America shall have a congregational board, consisting of 
the pastor and his assistants. These assistants shall aid the pastor 
in all religious-churchly matters which concern the congregation. 
This board shall meet at the call of the pastor. 

6. The pastor shall regularly visit the parochial schools and once 
a year give a public examination of the children in each of the con- 
gregation’s school districts, also make annotation concerning this in 
his school protocol. 

7. No pastor connected with the church can accept anyone as a 
member of his congregation, unless the applicant submit satisfactory 
testimonials from his former pastor, confess the doctrine of the 
church, and subscribe to its order. 


” Maanedstidende, August, 1853, 12. 


132 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Note. Should it occur that an applicant is not in possession of 
an attest from his pastor and cannot procure same without very 
great difficulty, then the good report of two members of the congre- 
gation shall serve as an attest (i.e. certificate of good character). 

8. No pastor connected with the church shall administer the 
Sacrament to any newcomer from Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, or 
to anyone who has moved in from other parts of America, if said 
person has lived within the congregation for over a year without 
joining it. 

9g. When a pastor withholds the Sacrament of the Altar from a 
member, then he must within eight days notify the president of the 
church council and also give the reason for such refusal. The 
pastor’s assistants or congregational board shall likewise add their 
statement and opinion in the matter. The president of the church 
council shall submit the case to the church council, and in case this 
finds that the pastor has acted correctly, then he shall communicate 
the findings to the other pastors of the church. These must not 
thereafter admit such a member to Communion so long as this de- 
cision is not rescinded by a decision of the church council or the 
Synod. On the other hand, if the president of the church council 
finds the reason for exclusion doubtful or insufficient, he shall com- 
municate this his opinion to the pastor and the congregational board. 
In case the pastor persists in the exclusion, this shall then be sub- 
mitted to the church council for a decision at their first regular 
meeting. Both parties should appear before the council and, if this 
then finds that the pastor has acted rightly in the matter, it shall 
support the pastor in his stand. 

10. No pastor of the church shall admit anyone to Communion 
concerning whom it is known that he willingly and with delight 
lives in one or more vices or sins of malice, unless he sincerely 
promises to better himself. But if one who is thus admitted once 
to Communion on such a promise continues to permit sin to rule 
over him, he shall henceforth not be admitted to the Sacrament, 
even though he promises betterment, so long as there is not a definite 
change for the better in his life. 

11. The vices, on account of which Communion shall be denied, 
shall not only be such as are rare or uncommon, but such a denial 
should also apply to the more usual and common transgressions of 
God’s commands; as, for instance, cursing and swearing, drunkenness, 
frivolous and unchaste speech, malicious backbiting, disobedience to 
parents, cheating in business transactions, etc. The pastor, in the 
performance of his office, should have no regard to persons or make 
distinctions in regard to sins, but merely consider whether the sin 
which he punishes is a ruling sin or a sin of malice, so that the 
transgressor lives in it knowingly, willingly, and with delight. In 
case the pastor is in doubt as to whether he shall exclude such a 
sinner from Communion, he should not take action before he has 
consulted his congregational board or gotten a decision in the matter 
from the church council. 

12. When anyone is excluded from Communion, the pastor should 
not consider his duty as a shepherd of souls to have ceased over 
against the excluded sinner; he should, on the contrary, on every 
occasion seek to admonish and guide him into true conversion from 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 133 


the error of his ways. When any signs of conversion appear, he 
should help him on the right way with a spirit of gentleness. 

13. If anyone has a complaint against any of the church’s pastors, 
then the complaint, which shall be signed by at least two witnesses 
who are members of one of the congregations in the church, shall 
be addressed to the president. At least fifteen days’ notice shall be 
given both to the complainant and the defendant regarding the time 
when the matter shall come before the church council. In case either 
of the parties is dissatisfied with the finding of the church council, 
the case can be brought before the following synod convention. Such 
an appeal must be decided upon and made known to the church coun- 
cil within fifteen days after its decision was made known. 

14. If the church council finds that the case against the pastor is 
of such a nature that the pastor ought to be suspended from his 
pastoral office, the suspension must be announced, not only to the 
pastor, but also to his congregational board, and to all the congrega- 
tions which are united with the church. He must not perform any 
pastoral functions during the period of his suspension. 

15. It shall devolve upon the church council, as the judges in the 
first instance, and the Synod, as the judge in the last instance, to see 
to it that the judgments are properly announced to the parties inter- 
ested. A full account of the whole case shall accompany this an- 
nouncement. 

16. Every judgment of the church council which is not appealed 
shall be executed twenty days after its announcement. 

17. When a pastor by a final judgment is deprived of his pastoral 
office, he shall henceforth not be accepted as pastor by any congrega- 
tion connected with the church, unless the Synod decides otherwise. 

18. In case members of the church council are accused they are 
to be judged by the Synod. 


SPECIAL SYNODICAL DECISIONS 


1. The Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church of America 
cannot henceforth acknowledge a baptism which is performed by 
persons who are not recognized by the church as properly examined, 
called, and ordained pastors, or a baptism which is performed by 
pastors in church bodies in which the covenant of baptism is not 
established, which rite it must regard as nothing more than an emer- 
gency baptism. The church will under the present circumstances not 
recognize any church covenant of baptism as having been established 
except this is later to be followed by confirmation, the confirmation 
examination to include the whole Apostolic Creed instead of merely 
comprising the second confirmation question. 

2. Whereas, the Scriptures and the Symbolical books of our 
church everywhere very clearly teach that man’s life on this side 
of the grave is his time of preparation and conversion, that it is 
the time of grace which must be bought, that it is the day of salva- 
tion, and, 

Whereas, the Scriptures nowhere mention or teach that a person 
can after death come to conversion and salvation, if he died in im- 
penitence and unbelief, but that the contrary is everywhere taught; 
therefore, be it 


134 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Resolved, that we reject as very erroneous and dangerous doctrine 
every teaching concerning such a conversion after death, and that we 
as a church refuse to use all books teaching this doctrine, and exclude 
from our church all persons who teach these erroneous doctrines. 
This decision shall forever remain unchangeable and irrevocable. 


This constitution was not above reproach and had to be changed 
in several respects. A contributor in Halvorsen’s Festskrift calls 
attention to the fact that paragraph nine, dealing with church disci- 
pline, was in conflict with Matt. xvili.17, where the local congrega- 
tion, not the synod, has final authority in matters of discipline. This 
was, therefore, later amended. The name of the church was changed 
in 1868 to be The Synod for the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran 
Church of America, and was henceforth known as the Synod or The 
Norwegian Synod.®° In 1868 the constitution was otherwise thor- 
oughly revised and considerably lengthened, partly by introducing 
changes into the text, partly by adding a whole section or chapter, 
and partly by adding subdivisions under the old heads. Other 
changes had to be made when the Synod was divided into three dis- 
tricts in 1874. Since that time, districts have been added and other 
changes have been made, but through it all the venerable constitution 
has at least formed the solid groundwork for the Norwegian Synod’s 
constitutional development and expansion. 

At the end of 1853 we thus have three synodical organizations 
among the Norwegians: (1) The Evangelical Lutheran Church of 
America, for which Elling Eielsen and his friends had provided the 
Old Constitution in 1850; (2) Paul Anderson and his group which, 
in 1848, had joined the Franckean Synod only to withdraw and form, 
with Swedes and others, the Northern Illinois Synod in 1851; and 
(3) the Norwegian university group, which in 1853 organized the 
Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, later known 
as the Norwegian Synod. In religious fervor Eielsen excelled; in 
popular appeal and sensitiveness to popular desires, Paul Anderson’s 
group was strongest; in churchliness and sturdy leadership, the 
Synod group ranked highest. Each group had its strong points, and 
it soon appeared that each group also had its vulnerable points. To 
these groups might be added a fourth, the Muskego laymen, who had 
become offended during the meeting at East Koshkonong in Febru- 
ary, 1853, and had left in anger. Throughout the negotiations these 
laymen had done all in their power to block the union, but after their 
initial sticcess in blocking Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson’s proposed 
meeting in 1849, the work of union was carried on in spite of them. 
Two reasons for their obstructive tactics suggest themselves: (1) 
The Muskego leaders had been in full control at Muskego before 
the advent of pastors, and yielded very reluctantly at the advent of 
the pastors. (2) They were loathe to see the center of Lutheranism 
move from Muskego to Koshkonong. Try hard as he would, Rev. 


® Also called Wisconsin Synod, particularly by its enemies. 


THE PREUSES—KOSHKONONG GROUP ORGANIZES 135 


H. A. Stub, the pastor at Muskego, was unable to get his congrega- 
tion to join the Norwegian Synod in the face of the opposition from 
the powerful laymen. On account of the resulting friction, Stub re- 
signed from the pastorate at Muskego in 1854. 


CHAPTER VIL 
DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 


I. PAPERS—PERSONALITIES—SYNODICAL ISSUES 


As the different groups are lining up for the various conflicts 
that seem more or less inevitable, we shall pause a moment to take 
an inventory of their arsenals of warfare. In eloquence each group 
had its Aaron; in wit and strategy each had its Jacob; in wisdom each 
had its Solomon; in patience and perseverance each had its Job. In 
these battles, word of mouth, direct action, and the printed page 
were the implements of warfare. Of the first, nearly all is lost; of 
the second, we shall have occasion to speak at the proper time; of the 
third, it is pertinent to say a few words at this juncture. 

During this time a new element, the immigrant press, had become 
a factor with which to reckon.t| While most of those who had been 
in America a few years could read English, they felt more at home 
with the newspapers that used a language which was still very dear 
to them. It is, moreover, a trait of the Norwegians that they trust 
their own countrymen almost to the utmost, and though some took ad- 
vantage of this, seldom was this confidence betrayed. ‘This psycho- 
iogical factor—present in most immigrant groups, no doubt—gave 
the press a position of great power. Unfortunately it was not al- 
ways Clearly realized that power should carry with it responsibility ; 
some of these early newspapers, at any rate, stooped to pick up per- 
sonal quarrels, in the course of which very indelicate things were said. 

As early as 1847, thanks to the enterprise of Even Heg, a paper 
in the Norwegian language, called Nordlyset (The Northern Light), 
was issued at Muskego. With Even Heg as practically sole owner, 
James D. N. Reymert as part owner and editor, and Ole Torgerson 
as typesetter and compositor, the project got definitely under way on 
July 29, 1847, when the first modest issue of four four-columned 
pages appeared. By agreeing to accept the price of subscription in 
farm produce as well as in cash, the managers succeeded in placing 
two hundred names on the subscription list. Since many failed to 
fulfil their side of even this attractive proposition, the editor, Mr. 
Reymert, was forced to sell his stock to Heg and Company in 1848. 
This company again sold the paper in 1849 to Knud Langland and 


*For the history of the early Norwegian American press see Carl Hansen, 
“Pressen til Borgerkrigens Slutning” in J. B. Wist, Norsk Amerikanernes 
Festskrift, 1914. Also taken up in part in J. A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske 
Kirkes Historie 1 Amerika, 86, and in H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, 215. 


136 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 137 


O. J. Hatlestad, who moved the press to Racine, Wisconsin, and 
changed the name of the paper to Demokraten. Even under its 
changed name it did not survive more than a year and a half, the 
last number appearing under date of October 29, 1851. 

Nordlyset, the first-born of the large and strong family of Nor- 
wegian American newspapers, is cherished, in spite of its premature 
birth and early demise, as a worthy precursor of its giant brothers 
who were better and more favorably born. Though its limited 
space often served as a medium for the expression of narrow and 
bigoted opinions about men and their personal affairs,’ this paper, 
nevertheless, to some extent challenged its readers to constructive 
thought on political and religious issues in their new American home- 
land. In recognition of its political influence, James D. N. Reymert 
was elected to sit in the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention in 1847, 
and Langland, a later part-owner of the press, sat in the Wisconsin 
Assembly in 1860. In recognition of what the Norwegian American 
press, with very few exceptions, has been to the Norwegian Luth- 
eran Church of America, files of Nordlyset are now in the possession 
of Koren Library, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, and of Luther 
Theological Seminary, Como and Pierce Avenues, St. Paul, Minne- 
sota. The Seminary file of this rarest of all Norwegian American 
papers is declared unique by Prof. Theo. C. Blegen.*? The Luther 
College file is even more complete.‘ 

In 1850 another paper, De Norskes Ven (Friend of the Nor- 
wegians) appeared, but its span of life covered less than half a year. 
In that time it vainly tried to make its Whig ideas prevail against the 
Democratic position of its abler opponent, K. Langland. Langland’s 
triumph was short-lived, however, as the Norwegians soon joined the 
Republicans in the stand of this party on slavery. 

At the demise of Demokraten, the press equipment was divided 
between its owners, O. J. Hatlestad and K. Langland. With his por- 
tion of the press Hatlestad issued a religious monthly which he called 
Ktrketidende for den Skandinavisk Evangelisk-Lutherske Kirke, or 
simply Kirketidende (Church Times). After a precarious existence 
at Racine, Wisconsin, the press was moved in July or August, 1853, 
to Norway, Illinois, where Hatlestad disposed of it to Ole Andrew- 
sen. Andrewsen continued to issue the paper under its old name 
until about October, 1854. On December 4, 1857, the paper reap- 
peared under the changed name of Norsk Luthersk Kirketidende,® 
with Ole Andrewsen as owner and Paul Anderson and O. J. Hatle- 
stad as editors. This company was forced to discontinue the paper 
sometime after November, 1860. 

*This Muskego organ contained frequent and bitter attacks upon Rev. 
J. W. C. Dietrichson of Koshkonong. 

* Minnesota History Bulletin for November, 1920. 

*Karl T. Jacobsen, “The Library” in Luther College Bulletin, January, 
1924. 

x Ghee Lutheran Church Times. Rare copies at Luther College, 
Decorah, Iowa. ; 


138 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Langland’s portion of the press was destined to give much longer 
service. He sold his portion to the Koshkonong group of pastors, 
whose Maanedstidende (Monthly Times) is the oldest Norwegian 
Lutheran church paper in America, being several weeks older than 
Hatlestad’s Kirketidende. At the time of the purchase (1852), the 
pastors were incorporated as the Scandinavian Press Association for 
the purpose of issuing both a secular and a religious paper. We 
shall take this up in detail. 

In an article dated December 3, 1847, which appeared in Nordly- 
set, January 20, 1848, Rev. C. L. Clausen broached the idea of issu- 
ing a paper to be called Norsk Luthersk Maanedsskrift.6 The 
paper should be in octavo (book) size, and should contain informa- 
tion regarding the Lutheran Church, its doctrines, polity, usages, and 
should also answer objections to the same; give reports of other 
Lutheran and Reformed bodies, their history, polity, doctrine, and 
other information; carry news items from the Church in Norway 
and other countries; print news from the mission fields; and have 
articles of edifying and informational character. Naturally, the 
reader might not agree with everything thus printed, but he is at 
liberty, in that case, to take the editor to task, so long as he does not 
attack such fundamentals as the Baptismal Covenant * and the Words 
of Institution of the Lord’s Supper. Otherwise not even attacks on 
the church will be excluded, it being understood, of course, that the 
editor is free to make reply. Not only will such a paper prove ex- 
ceedingly interesting, but at our stage of development, he said, it is 
also becoming absolutely necessary. While he felt that an abler man 
should take hold of this, his colleague, Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, 
he said, has absolutely refused to serve as editor for want of time. 
As soon as five hundred subscriptions at the rate of a dollar a year 
have come in, the paper will be issued. 

Clausen received the hearty support of such men as K. Langland 
and others. The latter expressed his delight that such an eminently 
qualified man as Clausen was to take hold of this much needed work. 
In a great measure, he hoped, this would counteract the bitter party 
strife that was tearing at the vitals of every settlement. To show 
his sincerity, he sent in a subscription list containing the names of 
“most of the settlers” in his community.’ In spite of this and other 
support, the coveted five hundred subscribers were not forthcoming, 
and for this reason, and possibly also because of Clausen’s health, the 
idea was abandoned at this time. 

On December 7, 1850, a new announcement was made that Revs. 
A. C. Preus, C. L. Clausen, and H. A. Stub would issue a Maaneds- 

* That is, Norwegian Lutheran Monthly. This article was reprinted in the 
issues Of Nordlyset for January 27 and February 3, 1848. He gives failing 
health and his desire to do something for the church as his reasons for 


undertaking it. The text of this letter is reprinted in Bergh, Den norsk 
lutherske Kirkes historie t Amerika, 83. 


"A thoroughly Grundtvigian tenet which Clausen later recanted. 
* Nordlyset, February 24, 1846. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 130 


tidende, beginning with January I, 1851. On the last page of the 
first issue, which appeared, not on January I, as announced, but in 
March, is a short announcement “which has appeared in both the 
Norwegian papers,” ® stating that Maanedstidende proposed to follow 
a program much like the one mapped out by Clausen above, and that 
the paper would be a monthly of twenty-four pages in octavo (book) 
size, the subscription price to be fifty cents a year.1° During the first 
year of its existence, it was printed on the press of the Demokraten, 
Racine, Wisconsin, under the management of the three above-men- 
tioned pastors. In April, 1852, Maanedstidende appeared with a 
title page saying that it is edited by “the pastors of the church’ and 
printed by den Skandinaviske Presseforening (the Scandinavian 
Press Association), at Inmansville—another name for Luther Val- 
ley—Wisconsin. It is further explained in the same issue that five 
pastors, instead of three, have a share in editing the paper, as Rev. 
G. F’, Dietrichson and Rev. H. A. Preus have now arrived from Nor- 
way. Even with its seven hundred to eight hundred subscribers, the 
announcement continues, the paper does not pay for itself; hence, 
after consulting men who know, they have decided to reduce the 
paper from twenty-four to sixteen pages. What is thus lost in quan- 
tity must be made up in quality ; superfluous words, as well as super- 
fluous articles, will be eliminated. Among the latter are mentioned 
replies to Hatlestad’s “Racinske’ Kirketidendes attacks upon the 
‘Synod and its pastors. Concerning other personal and impersonal 
matters which are brought up against us, they said, we have unanim- 
Cue aGecided ul etrity passians 

This program evidently met with great favor, although the paper 
had to be suspended for two years (August 1853-March 1855) be- 
cause the press was employed to capacity in printing books.42, When 
the paper reappeared in March, 1855, it was called Kirkelig Maaneds- 
tidende (Church Monthly), which name it retained until 1874, when 
it was made a weekly and given the name Evangelisk Luthersk Kirke- 
tidende (Evangelical Lutheran Church Times).*% 

Besides the above-mentioned publications, the Press Association 
issued a political paper called Emugranten (The Emigrant), of which 
the first number appeared January 23, 1852, with Rev. C. L. Clausen 
as the unwilling editor.1* As early as August 27 of the same year, 
Clausen bids his readers adieu and commends his successor, Carl 
Martin Riise. After a year and a half, the latter was supplanted by 

°Presumably Demokraten and De Norskes Ven. 

*” Maanedstidende, March, 1851. A complete file of this paper under its 
various names is found in Koren Library, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. 

% Maanedstidende, April, 1852. 

™ See introductory remarks to Kirkelig Maanedstidende, 1855, 2. 

* For a detailed history of this official organ of the Norwegian Synod, see 
Laur. Larsen, “Vort Kirkeblad” (Our Church Paper), in H. Halvorsen, 
Festskrift, 215. 

*C. L. Clausen says in the second number of the paper that he did not at 


all desire the editorship, but he was proposed and unanimously elected by the 
Press Association in spite of his protests. 


140 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


K. Fleischer, who in turn would have been relieved had he not in 
1857 delivered the Press Association from “pastoral domination” by 
contributing toward the resignations of Rev. G. F. Dietrichson and 
Rev. A. C. Preus. These internal struggles did not strengthen the 
Press Association ; hence, the purchase of the press in 1857 by C. Fr. 
Solberg and its removal to Madison, Wisconsin, was a relief not 
least to Rev. H. A. Preus, who was still a member of the Association. 
For a long time the pastors had fully controlled a religious paper and — 
had nominally controlled a secular paper.** Both were powerful fac- 
tors in molding public opinion in those days when even very intimate 
things were discussed by the public press. 

In the lapse indicated above, when the Press Association was 
so busily engaged in issuing religious books that it found no time 
for issuing Maanedstidende, it printed several books. Emuigranten 
for February 4, 1853, announced that though the printing of Lars 
Linderoth’s Sermons was somewhat delayed, those who had sub- 
scribed for the book could have it at reduced rates up to March I. 
Two weeks later, February 18, it announced that the Catechisms and 
A B C’s were just off the press, and that Saxtorph’s abridged edition 
of Pontoppidan’s Explanation would be ready for distribution at 
the end of the month. In 1854 the Press Association issued Wexels’ 
Bible History and Guldberg’s Psalmebog (Hymn-book) ; in 1855, the 
Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church; and in 1856, Luther’s 
Large Confession and Smaa Fortallinger til Fadervor (Short stories 
in connection with the Lord’s Prayer). Besides this, the press did 
enough outside work for the State of Wisconsin and others to keep 
itself going financially. The Press Association thus did some very 
creditable, all-around work. 

Hardly had Maanedstidende appeared in 1851 when O. Hatle- 
stad set up his portion of the former Demokraten press, and issued 
his Kirketidende from Racine, Wisconsin.1® From its first issue 
until its demise in 1854, this paper kept up a constant attack upon 
the pastors who founded the Norwegian Synod. MHatlestad being yet 
unordained, the “‘pastors,” 1” as indicated by the introduction to the 
second volume of Maanedstidende, regarded him and his attacks 
with lofty disdain. But their unofficial spokesmen, the editors of 
Emugranten and others, entered into the lists with such zeal that noth- 
ing further could be desired. Provocations conveniently offered 
themselves to those who were looking for trouble. In order to 
“settle’’ some difficulties he had with the Press Association regarding 
some remains of the Demokraten press, Langland used his brother’s- 


_™ Emigranten was dubbed “the clergymen’s paper” by its opponents, though 
Rev. A. C. Preus says that only one signed article by the clergymen had 
appeared in Emigranten even during the time Maanedstidende had been 
discontinued. 

*© A practically complete file of Hatlestad’s Kirketidende is found in Koren 
Library, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. 

™ Since the Koshkonong group of pastors did not as yet belong to a 
synod, they were referred to as the “pastors” (prestene) by their opponents. 


DIVERGENT SYNODIGAL, ACTIVITIES 141 


in-law paper, Kirketidende, for a resounding blow at the Press As- 
sociation, the membership of which largely consisted of pastors. J. 
D. Reymert, former editor of Nordlyset, stepped into the breach, 
and with Emuigranten as an organ carried on a most lively newspaper 
feud with Langland, in which many very personal matters were inti- 
mately discussed. Although the pastors were only indirectly con- 
cerned, they had to bear the brunt of the attacks, as Kirketidende 
raised its guns over the heads of the “smaller fry” in the foreground 
and aimed them directly at the pastors who were trying to keep in 
the background in this scurrilous feud. 

Kirketidende thus sent out many appeals and warnings against 
the pastors. Here is one by an anonymous writer found in the issue 
for January 27, 1852: “My Norwegian countrymen in America! 
What think ye? Are ye still minded to establish such an ‘Iberotisk’— 
idiotic—(we could well say theatrical) church body, also here on the 
noble soil of freedom, equality, and human freedom.” The article 
goes on to denounce the “pastors” for imprisoning Hauge: the “‘pas- 
tors’” prophets, Grundtvig and Wexels, possibly want this event 
Maa In the issue for February 23, 1852, this clarion call is is- 
sued : 


O ye Haugeans and our other Norwegian brethren who at the 
present time have the least solicitude for the eternal welfare of your 
souls! Ye have emigrated from Norway, and have set your feet 
on the noble soil of human freedom—America—do ye still wish with 
downcast eyes to permit yourself to be led by blind and inexperienced 
shepherds of souls? Do ye still wish to follow in the heels of the 
natural-minded, puffed-up, proud, haughty, lazy, and stingy Nor- 
wegian State church pastors? Assuredly ye are indifferent to your 
souls’ and your offsprings’ welfare! 


In the issue for July 2, 1852, the question is asked: “Should a 
congregation in this land of religious freedom accept an ungodly and 
unconverted pastor?” This question is pertinent in view of the 
denunciation hurled against the pastors that they were unconverted 
and unregenerate men, blind leaders of the blind. On April 5, 1852, 
Kirketidende treated its readers to a real salvo at the “pastors” both 
in prose and poetry. “What a face,” a “Lutheran” says, “would not 
Luther make if he now visited the so-called Lutheran State Church? 
Do ye believe, brethren, that he would acknowledge it as his church, 
as his faith and doctrine? ? Let me hear you once again! ! Answer 
me! ... From blind leaders free us, O, God! ! !” 

The general tenor of the conflict was not improved by outsiders 
who joined in on both sides. Here was an opportunity for those 
who from Norway had a real or supposed grievance against the 
clerical estate; to these the very name “clergyman” meant nothing 
else than “tyrant.’’?® Others felt that the pastors were becoming 

*For the social-religious-political revolt in Norway see above, Chapter I. 


Dietrichson had not been a reassuring factor to those who had once gone 
through—and won—the fight for personal freedom against the estates. 


142 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


too “important” and gladly undertook to trim them down. Would- 
be leaders saw their prestige wane before these men of undoubted 
poise and ability. And then there is that opposition of flesh and blood 
that any man of God expects to find in natural man. On the other 
hand, the “pastors” and their lieutenants were possibly too ready to 
take up the gauntlet, often entering into fights from which they could 
have retired without loss of prestige. In fairness to all contestants, 
it must not be forgotten that they felt very keenly their duty to wit- 
ness for the truth, lest by being silent they become partners in an- 
other’s sins. In a general way it might be said, however, that the 
“pastors” were fighting the “Samaritans” with Emigranten, and were 
peacefully building the walls of Zion with Maanedstidende.® Hat- 
lestad’s Kirketidende ended its bilious existence in 1853; the press 
was then moved to Norway, La Salle County, Illinois, and sold to Ole 
Andrewsen, who issued Kirketidende till the end of 1854. In 1857 
Paul Anderson and O. J. Hatlestad began to issue Norsk Luthersk 
Kirketidende from Andrewsen’s press at Leland, Illinois. This sur- 
vived a few years. 

The outbursts just considered were, of course, occasioned chiefly 
by church jealousies. Back of Maanedstidende and, in a way, of 
Emigranten, stood the Norwegian Synod, while back of Kirketidende 
stood Ole Andrewsen (its owner after 1853), P. Anderson and O. 
J. Hatlestad (its editors), the Franckean Synod, and the Northern 
Illinois Synod. During this time Eielsen had to depend on word of 
mouth to bring before the people his views on all these questions. 
Insofar as Kirketidende attacked the “pastors,” it might afford Eiel- 
sen some comfort, though Eielsen was not genuinely interested in 
seeing the men who treated him so badly at Middle Point carry away 
a great deal of spoils from the field. True enough, Rev. P. A. Ras- 
mussen, of Eielsen’s camp, issued a paper called Kirkelig Tidende 
(Churchly Times) from Lisbon during the years 1856 to 1861. But 
for Eielsen, this project became a viper in his own bosom, as Ras- 
mussen had no sooner started his paper than he began to criticize 
the Old Constitution, bringing on a definite break between the two 
almost at once. In this newspaper feud Fielsen thus remained rela- 
tively inactive, for very obvious reasons.?° 

Since cooperation of any kind between these rival factions was 
out of the question, the opposition could not aid and abet its enemy 
by using texts printed by the Press Association. Although the Press 
Association already had issued Guldberg’s Psalmebog (Hymn-book), 
Ole Andrewsen, with his Kirketidende press at Norway, Illinois, 
found it necessary to reissue the book, taking care to make the only 

” Carl Hansen, op. cit., 18, says: “As long as Clausen was the responsible 
editor of Emigranten, the battle seems to have been waged principally by the 
opposition.” 

” Dr. O. M. Norlie has heard reports about a certain Organ which Fielsen 
is supposed to have issued as a monthly from 1856 to 1866. Since no reference 


is made to this Organ either by contemporaries or by Eielsen’s two biog- 
raphers, further corroboration of these reports is awaited with interest, 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 143 


change he dared to make—in the binding. Under the same circum- 
stances Ole Andrewsen reissued Pontoppidan’s Sandhed til Gud- 
frygtighed (Truth unto Godliness). There was to be no “pastoral” 
taint on the books Ole Andrewsen and his friends distributed! 

Rev. P. A. Rasmussen was always more original and certainly 
more constructive. Somewhat later than its previous venture, hence 
under somewhat different circumstances, Rev. Rasmussen organized, 
1860, the Lisbon Norwegian Lutheran Association for the Publica- 
tion of Christian Books of Instruction and Edification. The Lisbon 
Association, as it was called, issued Rosenius’s Forklaring over Fa- 
dervor (Explanation of the Lord’s Prayer) and Frelsens Olie (The 
Oil of Salvation). Besides these, Rasmussen issued Johan Arndt’s 
True Christianity, which he had translated from German to Nor- 
wegian while teaching school at Lisbon. 

Though there was admittedly much spite work in connection with 
these early publication ventures among the Norwegians, nevertheless 
they show that the owners and editors of the papers were both enter- 
prising and courageous. It was inevitable, in one way, that there 
should be a clash between these presses, as the field was entirely too 
small to carry all these enterprises at once. American politics also 
were undergoing swift changes in the years between 1850 and 1860, 
and this circumstance acted as an exciting factor among the Nor- 
wegians, who have always taken an intelligent and independent stand 
on political questions. Caught in the surging currents of conflicting 
public opinion, it is no wonder that these settlers, whose sensitive 
Viking instincts were alert to every wind charged with the smell of 
battle, should become restless. Thanks to their inbred independence 
of judgment, and thanks to the powerful spiritual influences that 
were brought to bear on them, the Norwegians not only retained their 
moral and spiritual health, but through the constant challenge of di- 
vergent choices were made spiritually robust and intellectually sane. 

For want of a real issue, the Northern Illinois element could 
make no real headway against the Synod pastors by mere personali- 
ties. Not so with the Eielsen faction, however, among whom Ras- 
mussen soon became the master mind. The conventions of 1852 and 
1853 had taken the wind out of Eielsen’s sails, as the revised Synod 
constitution had removed the traces of Grundtvigianism which Eiel- 
sen had been able to attack most effectively in the constitution of 
1851. Like Eielsen’s constitution of 1850, the Synod condemned 
Wexels’ Explanation.24, The Synod further removed the offensive 
Grundtvigian clause from its second paragraph; but Eielsen retained 
his first paragraph, which placed the Confessions on an equality with 
the Bible, and hence was construed as being even worse than Grundt- 
vigian. As for the general tenor of the two constitutions, Eielsen’s 
constitution was possibly less Grundtvigian high-churchly than the 

74 Cf. Eielsen’s Old Constitution, paragraph 10, and the Synod’s Special 


Synodical Decisions. That the Synodical Decisions aimed at Wexels is defi- 
nitely stated by Clausen in Maanedstidende, July, 1851. 


144 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Synod constitution, but it was in great danger of going to the op- 
posite extreme in its condemnation of usages which are sanctioned 
by Article VII of the Augsburg Confession. Both constitutions had 
their grave faults, but if it came to a choice between them, the Synod 
constitution had fewer of the gross errors that characterized Eiel- 
sen’s. But it could not be expected that the supporters of either 
constitution should pass the gulf of prejudice fixed between them 
and go over to the other side; consequently each party had to be 
blind to the faults of his own constitution and very alert to the faults 
of the other. 

An issue that was very dear to the hearts of the Haugeans was 
the opposition to any changes in the religious texts. Professors 
Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari, of the theological faculty at 
Christiania, launched a vigorous attack on the Grundtvigian con- 
ception of the age and authority of the Apostles’ Creed, in the course 
of which Caspari did some valuable research. The Haugeans rallied 
to the support of the professors, and since these came out of the fight 
with some glory, the Haugeans also shared in this. Once Grundt- 
vigianism was routed, the changes introduced into the textbooks by 
the Grundtvigian Wexels became thoroughly odious and were thrown 
out in Norway. Lest they be despoiled of the fruits of this victory, 
the Haugeans were nervously alert to any new outbreak of Grundt- 
vigianism. The wary Haugeans accused Stub of Wexelsism, or neo- 
Grundtvigianism, because he not only had Wexels’ books on his study 
shelves, but he had held, moreover, that the heathen might be con- 
verted after death. Under the circumstances, Stub’s vote in 1851 
against the motion rejecting this doctrine aroused a very lively dis- 
cussion, not only in America, but also in Norway.??. Although A. C. 
Preus hastened to explain that he had not put Stub in the right light 
in his report of the meeting of 1851, seeing that Stub believed—had 
not taught—that there might be a conversion after death for the 
heathen who had never heard the Gospel—not for everybody **—these 
explanations failed to satisfy the opposition, which evidently regarded 
these distinctions as mere subterfuges. In the popular mind, Stub 
was a Grundtvigian; that matter was settled. 

As a consequence Stub had some trouble in Muskego, his Grundt- 
vigianism being one of the contributing factors that brought on his 
resignation from the congregation there in 1854.24 At Port Wash- 
ington he likewise had some trouble, the upshot of which was that 
eleven members left his church and found a ready welcome in Ras- 
mussen’s and Eielsen’s camp. Finally, to rid himself of the in- 
creasing load of opprobrium that was heaped upon him, not least by 
contributors to Rev. P. A. Rasmussen’s Kirkelig Tidende, Stub made 


™See Rev. C. L. Clausen, “Synodalbeslutning Nr. 3,” in Maanedstidende, 
July, 1851, 18 ff. 

= Maanedstidende, April, 1851, 14 ff. 

* Hatlestad, Historiske Meddelelser, 35, 36. Also A. Jacobsen, “Modet i 
Muskego Skolehus,” in Hatlestad, Kirketidende, December 22, 1852. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 145 


a full retraction in 1860, saying: “I am really happy also to state in 
public print that I have long ago, by the gracious enlightenment of 
the Holy Spirit through the Word, learned that my former views 
were false and, that if carried through to their necessary conse- 
quences, they would lead to a doctrine teaching universal conversion 
after death.” At the time in question he had never taught publicly 
regarding the conversion of the heathen after death, as by the very 
nature of the case, there was no occasion to do so.*> ‘The net result 
of this early skirmish was that Rev. H. A. Stub had to retire from 
a position in which he was exposed to a crossfire from his own as 
well as from the enemies’ lines. 

Another victim of similar circumstances was Rev. C. L. Clausen. 
Through the persistent attacks of Eielsen and others, Clausen’s po- 
sition at Muskego a few years earlier had likewise become intoler- 
able. As long as his own camp was made up of the thorough Grundt- 
vigian Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, and the moderate Grundtvigian 
Rev. H. A. Stub, some sort of solidarity existed in Clausen’s own 
ranks. But on the arrival of Rev. H. A. Preus, not only was this 
solidarity broken, but Clausen was attacked both by his own and 
the enemy forces. Clausen’s impulse seems to have been to run away 
from the whole thing, especially since his health was not of the best. 
After his humiliation at the revisions of the constitution of 1851, 
Clausen was rather lukewarm toward the new-formed body and es- 
pecially toward some of the new leaders in the Synod. When his 
health also failed him he retired from the active ministry in 1853, 
and took up colonization work at St. Ansgar, Iowa. At this the other 
pastors took offense, evidently regarding it as an attempt to dodge 
the issues that were outstanding between them. When Clausen in 
1861 applied for re-admission into the Synod, he had to make a full 
retraction. Accordingly, at the Synod meeting at Rock Prairie, 
Wisconsin, he confessed 


that he had sinned in that a few years earlier he had resigned from 
the pastorate. Further, he had to confess that through inner strug- 
gles and help from his fellow-pastors, but above all by the grace of 
God, he had learned to see that the so-called “churchly conception,” 
which he formerly had held and which regards the three Apostolic 
Articles of Faith as inspired as well as the Holy Scriptures, was a 
false and dangerous error, which he must now condemn both in 
himself and in others, although he believed that there also among 
those who were committed to this error were upright Christians. 
But he regarded his error in this matter as a great sin of which he 
heartily repented, and prayed God and men to forgive him.” 


Whatever else might be said, one cannot but marvel at the great- 
souled confessions that not only Stub and Clausen, but also others 
of the Synod pastors, made. Intervening between the first appear- 


* Kirkelig Maanedstidende, 1860, 285 ff. 
* Tbid., 1861, 234. 


146 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


ance of these errors and their clean-breasted confession is a period 
of agitation in which the very foundation work of the young church 
was severely tested. Apparently some of the “pillars” of the church 
were beset by certain tendencies, that, like wood-borers, eventually 
would have perforated the whole structure and caused its ruin un- 
less checked. While opponents gloated over the fact that they had 
forced their foes to retire from certain exposed positions, the friends 
of these men thanked God that they had now come to see the truth, 
and, by submitting to the honest demands of truth, had taken the 
steps that freed their group of a danger and a liability. When sev- 
eral of its pastors became confessed errorists, confidence was pos- 
sibly shaken in the Synod for a time; but it soon developed that 
these confessions possibly could never have been occasioned had not 
the Synod’s own leaders given a hearty response to the truth, even 
though it was tactlessly and irritatingly presented by the opposition. 
It takes great men to confess; greater men to judge dispassionately 
and fairly for the good of the cause for which they would give their 
very lives. 

But heresy hunting has always proved itself to be a dangerous 
sport. And it was the Haugeans who took the lead. Both Eistein- 
sen and Brohaugh, on the one hand, and Hatlestad, on the other, 
speak of the laymen as “loyally standing guard also against this 
(Grundtvigian) conception,’ and that “we can thank the laymen 
that this did not take root”; ?? that “these sincere Christians, who 
not only understood the true doctrine . . . but would not yield one 
iota of the saving truth,’ became aware of the fact that “the Nor- 
wegian pastors held these false conceptions.” 28 Within the Synod 
itself there also were laymen who considered their class as the sole 
defenders of the true faith. Thus Gulbrand Myhre, at the organ- 
ization meeting of 1852, stated that “false doctrine had always been 
refuted by the laymen,” hence laymen should have preponderating 
influence in the church council.2® Eielsen, who was always the 
spokesman of an untrammeled lay activity, capitalized the laymen’s 
zeal for orthodoxy to the utmost, giving his own party much credit 
that did not necessarily belong to it, as the Synod pastors were cer- 
tainly also on the alert against false doctrine. Eielsen was soon 
to learn this to his sorrow. 

These personal controversies were supplemented by synodical re- 
lations that must be considered to be more or less official. Here also 
short periods of rest were enjoyed: throughout it all there was a 
great deal of friendly intercourse between certain of the warring 
elements. 

No close surveillance was necessary to detect that Rev. A. C. 
Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, had weak places in his 
armor. In 1851 he wrote a series of articles in Maanedstidende, in 

* Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 70. 


*O. J. Hatlestad, op. cit., 36. 
*® Maanedstidende, April, 1852, 11. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 147 


which Eielsen and the laymen discovered six statements which cer- 
tainly bordered on Grundtvigianism. These were sufficiently defi- 
nite to make it necessary that Rev. H. A. Stub, in 1853, as a mem- 
ber of Preus’s synod, hence a partner to all of Preus’s errors, answer 
for them. These points were: 


(1) The foundation of the Church is Baptism and the Apostolic 
Creed; (2) the Creed must accompany the Word as a key which 
opens the secrets of the Word; (3) the Church is a collection of all 
the baptized; (4) belief in the Church; (5) the Church and the Com- 
munion of Saints are two distinct articles of faith; (6) the essence 
of the Church consists of ‘the Gospel in the World and Sacraments.” * 


Since these points of doctrine are all set forth in the Third Ar- 
ticle of the Apostolic Creed, a controversy about that article was un- 
avoidable. In this struggle also, Eielsen and the laymen found their 
weapons laid ready to hand by the controversy in Norway between 
the Haugeans and Wexels. As in the Arian controversy where one 
letter (the 4 in the homoousios—homoiousios) became the floodgate 
against heresy, so now the letter d should serve an equally important 
purpose. It was thought that orthodoxy could be preserved if all 
anti-Wexelsians would use the indefinite article en (a, one) instead 
of the definite den (the) before holy Christian Church.*: The den 
(the) can be made almost demonstrative in force, and then it points 
out the Church as an object of faith. But since the Church, in the 
eyes of the Ellingians, was composed of “the great mass,” comprising 
more unbelievers than believers, they chose to put into the term 
almindelig the idea that the Church was “unclean” rather than “uni- 
versal.” *? It was furthermore an offense in Eielsen’s eyes that 
men like Rev. A. C. Preus and others, contrary to synodical deci- 
sions— for which Eielsen did not care a fig of course—used 
Saxtorph’s Abridged Edition of Pontoppidan’s ‘Sandhed til 
Gudfrygtighed”’ instead of the dubbelte (i. e. dobbelte, double, 
larger) Explanation that Ejelsen regarded as the sine qua 
non.** 

In the ensuing struggle, Eielsen was curtly dismissed by the 
Preuses, who persisted in quoting Winer’s Greek Grammar, the Latin 
footnotes in Guericke’s A Manual of Church History, and the Latin 
version of the Augsburg Confession. It consequently devolved upon 
Rey. P. A. Rasmussen, who had taken a one-year course in theology 


- ”K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 287. From A. C. Preus in Maanedstidende, 
1851. 

-e The point is not so evident in the English where the is used in the Creed. 
In German we have something similar, as em can mean a or one just as en 
can have both meanings. 

“The Norwegian word ee ee has both meanings in a vulgar popular, 
but not in theological, usage. See H. A. Preus’s article against P. A. Ras- 
mussen in K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 152, 

*® Cf. above, 40, and Maanedstidende, October, 1852, 13. 


148 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


at the “Missouri” Synod’s Seminary at Fort Wayne, Indiana, to 
carry on the fight in the clarified air of theological erudition, where 
Eielsen could not get his breath. Though not eminently qualified for 
this task, Rasmussen had at least obtained some knowledge of the 
classical languages, and moreover, had witnessed at close range the 
terrific battle that from 1848 and on was being fought between the 
“Missouri” and the Buffalo (Lutheran) Synod, in which Prof. Wal- 
ther demolished one after another of Buffalo’s strongest tenets about 
the Church.** When the Preuses opened fire with the heavy artillery 
of Prof. Carl Paul Caspari, the great Norwegian scholar, and showed 
from the text and the history of the Symbol that their version of 
the Creed at least was not wrong, Rasmussen returned the fire with 
arguments that were a rehash of the popular, but not very learned, 
arguments of the Ellingians in America and the Haugeans in Nor- 
way. ‘To some extent, Rasmussen also found Walther’s arguments 
against the Buffalo Synod serviceable. By this strange concatena- 
tion of circumstances, Caspari’s anti-Grundtvigian researches 
were used as a_ defense against the anti-Grundtvigians,* 
and, on the other hand, Rasmussen, the later pronounced 
anti-‘“Missourian,’ used what he could of the ‘Missouri” 
arguments against what he regarded as the high-church Grundt- 
vigian element in the Synod. It was thus Rasmussen who first 
counterpoised “Missouri” orthodoxy against Norwegian State Church 
orthodoxy. 

Once the struggle had been elevated to a more scholarly plane, it 
soon became evident that there were points of agreement as well as 
disagreement. As the opponents were driven into concessions on 
both sides, the gulf separating them became so narrow that both 
sides had hopes of complete agreement in case they could have a 
personal conference. Such a one was accordingly held at Spring 
Prairie, Wisconsin, June 5, 1855, between Rev. H. A. and Rev A. 
C. Preus of the Synod and Rev. P. A. Rasmussen and Rev. E. Eiel- 
sen of the Ellingians. According to Rasmussen’s report in the 
“Missouri” Synod organ Der Lutheraner, Elling Eielsen was elected 
president and Rasmussen secretary.** In their report of the confer- 
ence *’ the Preuses take a very optimistic attitude, saying that there 
is a world of difference between Eielsen’s Synod now and formerly. 
This great change for the better was credited to Rasmussen and 
the better elements in Eielsen’s Synod. 

There was indeed cause for optimism. The conference had evi- 
dently steered clear of the reef on which other conferences had been 


“See W. H. T. Dau, Ebenezer, 117, for this controversy. 

* That these researches turned out contrary to Caspari’s original purpose 
afforded the Synod leaders some comfort at this stage when it seemed as 
though they would be forced to defend Wexels’s Grundtvigian texts of the 
Third Article of the Creed. They were too shrewd to be trapped into a 
general defense of Wexels, however. 


*° October 23, 1855. This report was to cause some trouble, as we shall see. 
"In K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 107. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 149 


stranded by giving the question of Eielsen’s ordination a wide berth 
for the time being.*® Elling’s group, of which Rasmussen was the 
spokesman, accused the Synod men of changing the Symbol to read 
den instead of en before Church in the Third Article. This might 
lead to the conclusion that a person, in a demonstrative way, could 
point to a certain local visible church and say “this is the Church.” 
To this the Preuses replied that they had never intended to draw 
such a conclusion; indeed, if they had seen how much trouble it 
would cause, they would never have used den. This much conceded 
by the Synod men, they next had to answer the charge that they 
had made a further edition to the Symbol by inserting almindelig 
(universal or catholic). Rasmussen had to concede that the word 
had been used from early Christian times up to Luther’s time; that 
Luther used universal in his Latin Catechism and Christian in his 
German Catechism; that Herman Francke used universal but not 
Christsan; and that Pontopiddan used both universal and Christian. 
Rasmussen further conceded that it was of no great importance 
whether or not they used the word almindelig, so long as they ad- 
mitted that the Church was spread over all the world and not re- 
stricted to a single place. This, the Preuses report, is a marked 
advance, as the Ellingians had declared the Synod congregations 
using this word—which did not appear in the Ritual, by the way— 
to be “unclean” and the children baptized with this formula to be 
baptized under the sign of the devil instead of the sign of the cross.*® 
The question next came up as to whether one should say believe the 
Church or believe in the Church. Rasmussen conceded that neither 
formula excluded belief in the invisible Church—as he seems to 
have claimed at first—but that belief in the invisible Church was 
involved in both. He further had to concede that one must believe 
the visible as well as the invisible or else plunge into the Donatistic 
error of making the Church include only the pure persons who be- 
long to the invisible Church. This latter doctrine was specifically 
taught in paragraph two of Eielsen’s Constitution. Rasmussen en- 
tered a protest against the teaching that one becomes a partaker 
with Christ as soon as he belongs to the visible Church. In reply, 
Rev. A. C. Preus’s explanation at Koshkonong of the words believe 
the . . . Church was cited, at which Rasmussen declared himself 
to be satisfied on this point.4° On his part, Preus said that since 
this expression was subject to misunderstanding and consequently 


*In the Synodical Report of 1855, 12, Clausen complains that several 
conferences have been broken up at the mere mention of this point, adding 
that the only answer Eielsen gave was to refer to documents supposed to be 
at Janesville, Madison, and other places. Eielsen, he said, could not see the 
reasonableness in the request that he legitimate himslf as a pastor. All 
Eielsen did was to challenge them to disprove that he was a pastor. 

®™K., Maanedstidende, 1855, 108. 

” Der Lutheraner, October 23, 1855, 44. This was a protest against the 
“dead,” “mass” Christianity that Eielsen always contended had the upper hand 
in the Synod, the inheritor of State Church Christianity. 


150 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


gave offense, he would henceforth not use it.4+ Rasmussen further 
protested against the attempt to distinguish sharply between Com- 
munion of Saints and Holy Christian Church, the first, according to 
Luther, being an interpretation of the latter.** The Preuses replied 
that both were essentially the same and no sharp distinction need 
be made so long as it is clearly kept in mind that one believes in the 
visible as well as the invisible Church, the object of those who wished 
to make one link out of these two having been to emphasize faith 
in the invisible Church only. 

Seven other points of great historic significance were then brought 
up but not discussed at any great length. These were: 


1. Absolution. 2. That false doctrine was the only valid cause for 
leaving one church and joining’ another. 3. That it was a Donatistic 
illusion to attempt to have a pure Church on earth, as Eielsen’s Old 
Constitution called for. [Rasmussen had the pleasure of announcing 
that the Donatistic clause had been removed from the Old Constitu- 
tion, chiefly through his instrumentality, at a meeting at Lisbon, 
Illinois, in June, 1854.] 4. That each one could do as he pleases in 
regard to wearing the clerical gown—a tremendous concession, they 
said, as paragraph six of Eielsen’s Old Constitution had denounced the 
long clerical gowns as contrary to Scripture, or at least as not com- 
manded in Scripture, and for either reason to be shunned. Funeral 
ceremonies, dedication of churches, and so on, are beautiful rites 
against which no objections are raised. 5. Bjorn Hatlestad should 
have been censured by his fellow-Christians in Eielsen’s church for 
saying that, for the sake of the salvation of their souls, true Chris- 
tians should leave the Synod and join Eielsen. 6. In case Olaus 
Nielsen had said that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and not the 
Word, was the two-edged sword, he erred. The Preuses thought, 
however, that Nielsen was speaking of the Word in his articles. 
7. In prayer meetings, not more than three persons should offer 
prayer in one evening. 


As some of the hopeful signs, Preus mentioned that the Lisbon 
meeting in 1854 had declared itself to be in favor of establishing an 
educational institution, whereas, before, Eielsen had asserted that 
“the one who has been to a higher institution of learning could not 
be anything else than a false prophet and worldly-minded.” ** Ata 
second session at Spring Prairie, Eielsen’s group rejected the doc- 
trine that the inner, or internal, call to the ministry was sufficient, 
and added that a person should also have an outer, or external, call 
from a congregation or its representatives before he be ordained— 
also a great concession, they said, when one considers Eielsen’s 
somewhat general disregard of the external call in former years. 


“K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 109. 
“Clausen repeatedly introduced motions that this distinction be made, but 
he received very little support for his views. See eg. Report of Synod, 


1855, 6 ff. 
“K. Maanedstidende, 1855, I10. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES I51 


Peace was assuredly in sight when these disturbing factors were thus 
put out of the way. Eielsen had certainly stretched himself to the 
limit—or had Rasmussen done this for himr 

The meeting closed with mutual felicitations. The Preuses said 
that in all essentials there was unity and that a union was extremely 
desirable, as by a union greater efforts could be set forth in counter- 
acting the sects. Rasmussen deplored the many church controversies, 
saying that beginners in Christianity often were taken away from 
the main issue of the salvation of their souls, entering prematurely 
into polemics instead of into the work of sanctification. The Preuses 
left the meeting in peace, while Eielsen’s Synod completed its synod- 
ical deliberations.** 

Concessions had thus been made on both sides and some progress 
had been made, but the parties were not ready for a union, judging 
by the reports each made of the meeting. In these each side mini- 
mized its own concessions and featured those made by the opposition. 
The Preuses, for instance, were very much gratified at the advances 
made by the Ellingian group under Rasmussen’s leadership, and if 
only Rasmussen and the Ellingians would acquire some more Chris- 
tian humility, it would be only a question of time when their synod 
would be dissolved and all of its members would come over to the 
Norwegian Synod. In his report to Der Lutheraner Rasmussen 
played up certain personal tilts in which he had gotten the best of 
the Preuses. Since he had not yet begun to issue a paper from his 
printing establishment, he issued for the benefit of the Norwegian 
public a pamphlet of some fifteen pages,*® in which he assumed an 
attitude more radical than ever on all the points conceded and gave 
an especially perverse report on the Synod’s conception of the word 
almindelig. He also made some charges that greatly incensed the 
Preuses. Rasmussen’s report appeared first and electrified the Nor- 
wegian Synod more thoroughly than had anything hitherto in the 
course of its young life. 

The Preuses each made a hot reply in Kirkelig Maanedstidende,** 
in which they expressed their pained surprise at Rasmussen’s ac- 
tion. Epithets were heaped upon Rasmussen, whose action could not 
be strongly enough characterized. Just why Rasmussen had written 
as he did was a puzzle to H. A. Preus; he could not clearly see 


“Der Lutheraner, October 23, 1855, 44 ff. One of the synodical decisions 
was to push the school project that Rasmussen had started at Lisbon in the 
spring after having been delayed, as he said, altogether too long by the trans- 
lation and publication of Johan Arndt, True Christianity. A church paper 
and a publishing house were among the other projects discussed. 

* Forhandlinger i det paa Springprairie awholdte Aarsméde den forst 
Mandag og tvende felgende Doge i Juni Naamd 1855. Copies of this are 
extremely rare. Parts of it have been imbedded in the works of opponents. 
This was part of his printed synodical Report. 

“A.C. Preus, “Til Hr. P. A. Rasmussen. Du skal ikke sige falsk Vid- 
nesbyrd mod din Naste’ in K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 112; H. A. Preus, 
“Tilsvar til Hr. Rasmussen i Anledning af hans Skamskrift: Fornandlinger 4 
Aarsmédet paa Springprairie, Juni, 1855,’ in K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 133. 


152 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


whether it was from implacable hatred or from a desire to regain 
the good will of the Ellingians, who had possibly accused him of 
being too friendly toward the Synod “pastors.” But whatever the 
motive, H. A. Preus finds in this pamphlet a rehash of all the old 
charges against the Synod, some of which, as for instance that the 
Synod taught a conversion after death, were miserably obsolete. 
Rasmussen’s conception of the Church was Jewish, he charged, mak- 
ing only the children of Abraham after the blood true members. If 
Rasmussen says that only a select few are predestined, so that God 
offers his grace merely in sham to others who are already slated for 
damnation, then he has imbibed too much of the spirit of the Ke- 
formed churchmen who for a time had received such friendly treat- 
ment in Elling’s camp.*7 Rasmussen replied in kind, getting not 
only all the space he wanted, but every other possible help from 
Den Norske Amerikaner (the Norwegian American), which was 
started in 1854 by all the forces opposed to Emigranten and the 
Synod “pastors” in general.*® No serious effort was made by either 
side to keep the controversy from degenerating into personalities ; 
both sides felt they were personally injured, and in order to vindi- 
cate their personal honor they had to make their opponents seem 
odious. Fortunately, no question of principle was injected into 
this controversy, though every conceivable subject was summarily 
discussed.*® 

As a result of the heat engendered in this controversy, the Synod, 
at its meeting on October 1-3, 1855, proposed that it would have noth- 
ing further to do with Eielsen’s group. In spite of every effort on 
the Synod’s part, the leaders said, Eielsen remained obdurate. A 
number of conferences had been flat failures, and after each there 
had been more bitterness than ever. And when this last conference 
ended well, the agreements were not only disregarded, but the old 
charges, that had all been admitted to be false, were repeated with 
more acrimony than ever. Clausen, for one, had lost all patience, 
he said. Koren said that the only condition upon which conferences 
could be continued would be that Eielsen become Lutheran; he fur- 
ther stated that the Synod’s repeated advances undoubtedly gave the 
other side the impression that the Synod pastors acknowledged that 
Eielsen was right and that they wanted in some way indirectly to 
come to a settlement without admitting themselves to be in the wrong. 
A. C. Preus would agree to a motion to break off relations; one had, 
however, to be careful not to offend against the tenets of Christian 


“ The reference is undoubtedly to Paul Anderson and others. It is strange 
that Rasmussen, so lately dismissed from the “Missouri” Seminary, should 
thus be roundly denounced as a Calvinist. 

“lias Stangeland was editor and printer, and with Charles M. Reese, 
ex-editor of Emigranten, Hans Borchsenius, and J. D. Reymert, also ex- 
editor of Emigranten, composed the staff of Den Norske Amerikaner. All 
cordially hated the Synod pastors for one reason or another. 

Ree A. C. Preus, “Lidt Meer om den lille ‘d,’” in Emigranten, February 
II, 1856. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 153 


love and forbearance. A motion was finally passed that relations 
should be broken, with the statement: “We do not hereby, of course, 
say that we should not in a loving manner associate in secular affairs 
with the members of that church.” °° Thus war to the hilt was offi- 
cially declared by the Synod pastors, who, for the time being, were 
very much incensed at the Eielsen- Rasmussen group. On the other 
side, Rasmussen and Eielsen did not stop to declare war officially, 
but entered heart and soul into the conflict. Throughout the contro- 
versy the Synod pastors singled out Rasmussen as the target for their 
attack, both because he was a worthy foeman, and because they 
wished to draw him out and drive a wedge between him and Eielsen. 
On the Synod pastors’ part, the controversy thus changed from a 
war of personalities to a war of conquest, though they were not 
destined to win Rasmussen immediately. 

As at the Spring Prairie meeting, so now in the course of the 
controversy, Rasmussen was driven out on theological grounds 
whither Eielsen was not equipped to follow. This unequal share 
in the fight and, consequently, in its honors, brought on strained 
relations in Eielsen’s camp. In the course of this fight with the 
Synod pastors, Rasmussen started his Kirkelig Tidende (Churchly 
Times) in 1856, which, as before mentioned, had such power of 
repercussion that Eielsen would have nothing more to do with Ras- 
mussen. Out on the field of theology, Rasmussen was again forced 
to admit the things he had admitted at Spring Prairie, but this time, 
when he came back to his own camp, he refused to repudiate the 
concessions he had made to the pastors, but insisted on abiding by 
his agreements. Goaded on by his opponents in the Synod camp, 
Rasmussen repeated the charge he made at Lisbon in 1854, that 
paragraph two of the Old Constitutton was Donatistic and that the 
changes voted by that meeting should be enforced. As at Spring 
Prairie, Rasmussen conceded that lay activity should be restricted, 
but when he turned to Eielsen to have this done, he found that Eiel- 
sen was in favor of an absolutely free and untrammeled lay activity. 
Once a wedge had been driven between the two, there was sufficient 
cause for reproach on both sides, as Rasmussen, both by his school- 
ing at Fort Wayne and his contact with the Synod pastors, had ac- 
quired ideas in regard to doctrine, and especially in regard to church 
government, that were absolutely foreign, if not downright odious, 
to Eielsen. Consequently, in the meeting at Primrose, Wisconsin, 
June, 1856, after a sharp but decisive battle between the “new” and 
the “old,’ Rasmussen and fully half of Eielsen’s total membership 
left the meeting in anger.®? Eielsen now recoiled and became more 
radically committed than ever to his Old Constitution and all its 
errors. lBesides this, Eielsen felt that Rasmussen’s approaches to- 


., Report, 1855, 14. 
* Above, 142. 
"™ Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Etelsens Liv og Virksomhed, 86-80. 


154 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


ward churchliness would be the bane of his cherished laymen’s ac- 
tivity.°* 

This was the second time that Eielsen had met opposition from 
the “educated” clergy in his own camp, and, though he had supported 
Rasmussen’s school at Lisbon, he was not at all inclined to perpet- 
uate institutions of learning which invariably seemed to bring him 
disaster. Only a repudiation of Eielsen could make a parley be- 
tween the educated Synod men and the group that remained with 
Eielsen at Primrose worth while, as matters now stood. With Eiel- 
sen were now four ordained men, of whom A. E. Boyum and Osten 
Hanson ** were to desert him in 1876, when Eielsen’s Old Consti- 
tution again had become a reef on which his synod ran aground. 

Rasmussen’s faction now censisted of his assistant, Rev. H. L. 
Thalberg (ordained 1855), and the powerful Lisbon congregation 
and its tributaries in Wisconsin and Illinois, and—later—in lowa 
and Minnesota. This group was subsequently joined by Rev. Nils 
Amlund (ordained 1860) and Rev. John N. Fjeld (ordained 1861). 

Having cast Eielsen’s bands from them, Rasmussen’s faction was 
now free to follow its own predilections. Just where these would 
lead is not so easy to see at this time, though Rasmussen was fully 
capable of organizing a church of his own if necessity arose. Look- 
ing to his past connections with “Missouri” and the undoubted ad- 
miration that this young Haugean had for the deep piety and the 
sterling orthodoxy of such “Missouri’s” leaders as Prof. Walther, 
President Wyneken, and Dr. Sihler, he might have been expected to 
cast his eyes in that direction. Indeed, Andrewsen’s Ksrketidende 
stamped him as a “Missourian,” a statement which, though denied by 
Kirkelig Maanedstidende,”> was not without its basis in fact as far 
as Rasmussen’s training and interests were concerned. Rasmussen’s 
development had undoubtedly been in the direction of churchliness 
rather than its opposites, and he had, moreover, begun to acquire a 
more thorough appreciation of pure doctrine as the fountainhead of 
correct Christian action. Among the Norwegians, the Synod repre- 
sented more especially the orthodox element he was looking for, 
though his association with Eielsen might have made it difficult for 
him to detect the piety which he also looked for in his associates. 
Nor had the wounds he had sustained in the fights with the Synod 
men healed sufficiently for him to give them the hand of fellowship. 
A third possibility was the Northern Illinois Synod, where there 
was a very voluble piety, but where other qualities that Rasmussen 
valued highly were sadly lacking. 

As for the Synod men’s attitude toward him, their Christian 
charity was not free from the dross of human passion, although the 


* By “laymen’s activity” he meant that laymen should perform practically 
all the ministerial functions except the administration of the Lord’s Supper. 
“O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester i Amerika, 24. 
__* Norsk Lutherske Kirkentidende, January 28, 1858, and Kirkelig Maaneds- 
tidende, March, 1858. 7 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 155 


concessions Rasmussen had made and his consistent action in fol- 
lowing these up by breaking with Eielsen rather than again repudi- 
ating them, naturally made the pastors respect Rasmussen very 
highly. But they wished to be sure of their man before they let 
him come into camp. Thus Rev, H. A. Preus, in his introductory 
remarks to Kirkelig Maanedstidende in 1856, speaks of the contro- 
versy with Eielsen’s church as having been carried on as a conse- 
quence of Rasmussen’s Report, and that Rasmussen had been, and 
still was, writing in his paper against the Synod pastors. In the 
course of the conflict, he says, the Synod had grown in the firmness 
and stability, the unity and cohesion, the devotion and sacrifice, 
which are so essential to the church’s growth and expansion. “On 
the other hand, our defense of the truth,” he claims, “has contrib- 
uted to the relaxation and split, which lately has appeared in the 
Ellingian body, and by which the truth—and our synod which stands 
by this—has won not a slight victory.” While Eielsen’s Synod was 
weakened, the Norwegian Synod was strong and eager for further 
exploits. 

Though A. C. Preus might have been willing to throw away the 
advantages thus gained by a generous impulse to make peace without 
carrying the fight to a decisive close, H. A. Preus was too astute 
and far-sighted a churchman for a hazard of this kind. Consequent- 
ly the struggle had to go on without any essentially new element 
being added, save possibly that Rasmussen was made more and more 
to realize that Haugean piety can be combined with orthodoxy among 
the Norwegians as well as among the Germans, where piety and 
orthodoxy were happily blended in Prof. Walther and others. Asa 
possible additional link between the two factions, the Norwegian 
Synod was making overtures in 1856-57-58 to send its young men 
to the Concordia Theological Seminary of the “Missouri” Synod at 
St. Louis. As time went on the relations between Rasmussen and 
the Synod pastors improved, as is shown by the somewhat friendly 
interchange of opinions from April, 1857, and on, regarding respect 
for each other’s parochial rights.*® 

Meanwhile, the relations between Rasmussen and Eielsen im- 
proved only very slightly, inasmuch as the offending paragraphs in 
Kielsen’s Old Constitution were not changed. In his Kirkelig T1- 
dende for May, 1857, Rasmussen attacked paragraph two of the 
Constitution very severely, saying that “the Ellingians here make 
no distinction between the visible and invisible Church, but place for 
admission to Elling’s church a condition which alone applies to mem- 
bership in the invisible Church, the Communion of Saints. They 
err in that they believe that their church is composed only of con- 
verted and holy persons, without any admixture of hypocrites.” °” 
Though Rasmussen very magnanimously refrained from using his 
paper for bitter personal attacks on his former associate, he did not 


® K. Maanedstidende, April, 1857. 
* Quoted by K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 110. 


156 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


altogether refrain from dealing in kind with Eielsen by word of 
mouth. Thus, at the meeting at Luther Valley in 1858, he said that 
he had left Eielsen both on account of Eielsen’s false doctrine and 
his personal conduct.°® 

If possible, the Synod and Eielsen’s group were farther re- 
moved from each other than ever. H. A. Preus now took hold of 
Eielsen’s Constitution and found many errors in it.°° He agreed 
with Rasmussen’s criticism of paragraph two and added that the 
Ellingians must claim for themselves the ability to discern in the 
hearts of men whether or not they are converted or on the way of 
conversion. Paragraph one says that “the Church shall forever be 
. . . built on God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures in conjunction with 
the Apostolic and Augsburg Articles of Faith.’ °° This means one 
of two things according to Preus; either the Church is built on the 
Word of God and the Apostolic and Augsburg Articles of Faith, 
or it is built on the Word of God in the Scriptures and in the 
Apostolic and Augsburg Articles of Faith. Both are equally er- 
roneous. Grundtvigians place the Apostolic Articles of Faith on the 
same plane with God’s Word, but the Ellingians go one better and 
include also the Augsburg Confession in this equality. No wonder 
they are so strict about the text of the Apostolic Creed, he says. 
Paragraph six condemns a long clerical gown, the Article VII of 
the Augsburg Confession notwithstanding. Paragraph five, he says, 
speaks of Absolution as being a consolation; the Lutheran Church, 
on the other hand, speaks of it as an impartation of the forgiveness 
of sins. They condemn us, he says, because we say the Church is 
almindelig (universal) and because our pastors are not spiritual. 
Because, he continues, they consider themselves “the little flock” 
and our congregations “the great mass,’ they have carried on as 
active proselytism as the Methodists and others, in the hope, as they 
say, of winning our people over to a true conversion and life in God. 
The Ellingians distinguish in Article XIV of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion between preaching and the administration of the Sacraments. 
Fielsen preaches in virtue of his “call from God” without attempt- 
ing to prove the legitimacy of his call, examination, and ordination. 
They also err in the matter of prayer meetings, he says, up to half 
a score praying in one evening, and among these are open and con- 
firmed sinners. Olaus Nielsen had made a specious interpretation 
of Paul’s words in that the women ask their husbands at home if 
they can speak publicly when they come into the assembly! Their 
doctrine that the Means of Grace lose power because they are ad- 
ministered by ungodly pastors is sufficiently condemned by the 
Church. He closes with a prayer that this frank exposition of his 
errors would bring Eielsen and his fellow-Christians back to the 
“old paths.” 

As could be expected, H. A. Preus did not succeed in “convert- 


* K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 186. ” See above, 107. 
® [bid., 1858, 110 ff. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 157 


ing’ Eielsen by this long list of errors of which he was supposedly 
guilty. This list is important, not because it made much of an im- 
pression on Eielsen, but because it represents an attempt to formulate 
the outstanding differences between Eielsen and the Synod pastors. 
What Ejielsen answered we shall never know; of this we can be 
certain, however, that he did answer, and if his answer had been 
recorded, it would probably have contained a still longer list of 
errors, to all of which, he would say, H. A. Preus must plead guilty. 

Now, some might feel that these personal controversies were al- 
together unworthy, if not downright unchristian. Not at all. As 
indicated above,®* the laymen were genuinely concerned about the 
doctrine and practice of the Church. Now Rev. H. A. Preus 
analyzes Rev. Eielsen’s Old Constitution and finds it—and Fielsen— 
wanting on several scores. Eielsen, in turn, feels in duty bound to 
instruct the Synod pastors in the right and God-pleasing ways of 
life and doctrine. That the differences between them were not in- 
vented is shown by the fact that it took fifty years to settle some of 
them. 

Nor must we imagine that these men entered into controversies 
because they had nothing else to do. On the contrary, some of the 
more unworthy outbreaks are directly attributable to overwrought 
nerves, as all the contestants, without a single exception, were men 
of fine Christian character and unimpeachable integrity. But a 
pastor, whose parish covers a state or more, might at times be off 
his guard and give vent to his spleen. Throughout it all, these men 
were even more active physically in their almost exhaustless efforts 
to build up God’s kingdom on the midwestern prairies, than they 
were mentally and spiritually in their efforts to build up an irre- 
proachable system of doctrine and practice in this young Norwegian 
American Lutheran Church. 


* See above, 146. 


GEAR VER Vat 
DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 


i. “LAYMEN’S ACTIVITY” 


WHILE these feuds were going on, a constructive labor of love was 
prosecuted with even more vigor. The pastors were traveling far 
and wide to bring the Word of Life to the Norwegians, who were 
beginning to come in increasing numbers to settle in the various 
middle-western states. 

The Synod pastors made arrangements with the Department of 
Church and Education in Norway in 1853 for the control of the 
clerical supply upon the following basis: 


1. That no permit for ordination be given any Norwegian candi- 
date in theology, called by a congregation in America, unless the 
call issued to him comes from the church council as the congrega- 
tion’s agent, or the church council has been heard in the matter. 
2. That the honorable department, in case it should accede to the 
church council’s request, should at its leisure make public its resolu- 
tion regarding this matter.* 


The church council in 1859 made a similar request of the Ger- 
man-speaking bodies,? in which they were less successful. With 
the control of the ministerial supply from Norway went a great 
missionary advantage. 

In contrast to the hot exchanges with Eielsen were the brighten- 
ing relations between the Synod, on the one side, and Rasmussen and 
Thalberg, on the other. A conference was held June 22, 1858, be- 
tween Thalberg and Ottesen in Milwaukee, at wiich the ‘Missouri’ 
pastors, Furbringer, Steinbach, and Lochner acted as intermediaries.? 
Here Ottesen explained to Thalberg’s satisfaction that the Grundt- 
vigianism in the Synod constitution of 1851 had been removed as 
early as 1852, and that the Synod pastors had no Romanizing in- 
tention in using the definite article in the text of the Third Article 
of the Apostolic Creed. To avoid offense, they agreed to use the 
indefinite article hereafter. Rev. A. C. Preus, though not a Grundt- 
vigian, had used misleading terms in his articles on the Church in 
1851,* but this doctrine was repudiated and the correct doctrine of 


*The Synod’s Korrespondence Protokol, 1853. 
*K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 80. 

* Report of it in K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 177 ff. 
*See above, 146 ff. 


158 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 159 


the Church was set forth by the pastors. Thalberg, on his side, was 
guilty of meddling at Port Washington and Muskego, where Rev. 
H. A. Stub was the rightfully called pastor. Even if Stub was at 
fault in his dealings with the Muskego congregation, Thalberg should 
have heard the other side ® before receiving the malcontents into his 
congregation. To make amends, these members should either be 
sent back, or, in case they refused to go back, be denied membership 
by Thalberg. This was the judgment of the intermediaries. 

A similar conference of much more far-reaching consequences 
was held at Luther Valley, Wisconsin, October 4, 1858.° Profs. 
Walther and Craemer of the “Missouri” Synod acted as intermedi- 
aries, and to accommodate them the German language was used. 
Present from the Synod side were pastors A. C. Preus, H. A. Preus, 
Nerprandty ert) ietrichsontier, stub, V7 Koren.) |2.5. Munch, 
Pow) orodahl, Laur: Larsen, J. A..Ottesen, and, ©. F. Duus, >On 
the other side were Revs. P. A. Rasmussen and H. L. Thalberg. 
This meeting must have been carefully prepared, as it consisted of 
two confessions and very able discussions. 

Rey. A. C. Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, opened the 
conference confessing that his articles in Maanedstidende about the 
Church were hazy and erroneous. Of this he heartily repented. He 
was also willing to admit other possible errors. He admitted, when 
Rasmussen raised the question, that he had erred in distinguishing 
between Church and the Communion of Saints, and that he had had 
a tendency toward high-churchism in his effort to counteract the 
enthusiasts as he called the extreme low-church element; but, he 
added, he had repudiated these errors at the last yearly meeting of 
the Synod. Since Rasmussen, it was charged, had given the “Mis- 
sourians” the impression’ that there were Romanizing tendencies 
in the Norwegian Synod, Prof. Walther was asked to express himself 
on this point. The latter admitted that he had received this impres- 
sion from Rasmussen’s reports, but that he could not remember that 
Rasmussen had at any time specifically made this charge. H. A. 
Preus asked if they again had to go over what was settled at Spring 
Prairie in regard to the Church. Koren wanted to know if the whole 
Synod was to be held accountable for what A. C. Preus wrote be- 
fore the Synod was organized and before the majority of its present 
pastors had even come to America. Rasmussen declared that pos- 
sibly the whole Synod was not at fault, and that, therefore, Preus’s 
retraction was all that could be required. 

Rasmussen stamped as false A. C. Preus’s statement that one 
should believe in the Church. Although no false doctrine was har- 
bored back of this statement in his case, Preus admitted that the 
word was subject to misunderstanding, hence should not be used. 


*Audiatur et altera pars. See above, 144, for Stub’s troubles at Muskego 
and Port Washington. 

*Report of this in K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 180-102. 

“By his reports in Der Lutheraner, and otherwise. See above, 151. 


160 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


He had further declared that the Protestants had not developed the 
doctrine of the Church. This he retracted. As for the parts en- 
tering into a proper definition of the Church, Rev. Preus had predi- 
cated too many of these, and now repudiated this error and re- 
asserted his adherence to Article VII of the Augsburg Confession. 
Rev. P. A. Rasmussen now declared himself reassured as to the 
orthodoxy of Rev. A. C. Preus and the Norwegian Synod in regard 
to this part of the doctrine of the Church. Rev. Rasmussen then 
took up some statements in the synodical Report of 1855, but Rev. 
J. A. Ottesen explained that these were the opinions of Rev. C. L. 
Clausen, a “confirmed” ® Grundtvigian. Olaus Nielsen’s Letters to 
the Trondhjemmers were taken up, since the Preuses had declared 
them erroneous at Spring Prairie, but had later recalled their state- 
ments. The Preuses admitted that they had not been sufficiently 
circumspect in this matter. In regard to those who held that there 
was a conversion after death, Rev. A. C. Preus had said that in 
America he would have no fellowship with such as taught this, 
but in case he returned to Norway, he would submit to such a 
fellowship. Preus explained that he would not refuse to enter the 
service of the State Church simply because there were those in 
it that held these erroneous views. But he would not refrain from 
witnessing against this error. Rasmussen was satisfied. The def- 
inite den, or indefinite en, article came up for discussion again. 
Ottesen said that there were fully four accepted versions in use; 
that a royal commission had revised the religious school texts, adopt- 
ing the word almindelig which for ten years gave no offense. But 
when a later commission made some further alterations in order to 
introduce changes in doctrine toward Grundtvigianism, a storm of 
opposition was aroused which did not confine itself to that partic- 
ular commission’s work, but also took in the revisions of 1835. 
Revs. J. W. C. Dietrichson and C. L. Clausen, the first pastors in 
America, being Grundtvigians, had introduced the new versions, 
but had retained Christian in the text. When the later pastors came, 
for the sake of peace and to avoid confusion, they used these texts 
without thereby subscribing to the Grundtvigian doctrine. For 
proof of this he pointed to the revision of the Synod constitution of 
1851. 

Because the opposition, Rev. V. Koren said, had taken such ex- 
treme positions as to state that the Synod formula would condemn 
one to hell-fire, the Synod had not as readily yielded as it otherwise 
would. Rasmussen observed that the struggle was not so much 
concerning the texts used in school as regarding the formula used 
in baptism. The indefinite en, he said, is better attested than the 
definite den, and has been used in the Norwegian Church since 1783 ; 


*A footnote explains that Clausen accepted only a part of Grundtvig’s 
doctrine. He did believe that the Apostolic Creed was inspired as well as the 
Scriptures. But he did not place the Creed besides the Scriptures as norma 
normans. (K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 182.) 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 161 


by setting aside the Lutheran version and accepting another, the 
Lutheran version is declared to be false, and Wexels’ to be correct ; 
the new version was used as a means of smuggling in the new doc- 
trine that the Church consisted of all the baptized who confessed the 
Christian faith; and, if nothing else, these changes open the articles 
to revisions with absolutely no guarantee that the reviser will stop 
there. In this connection, Brandt and Koren explained that the 
children who had been denied baptism were denied because their 
parents had declared that almindelig was false and unbiblical.® 
Prof. Walther observed that almindelig was an excellent translation 
for catholica, and could in no way be branded as false. Rasmussen 
and Thalberg said they had no objection to the word so long as it 
was given a proper meaning. 

It was now Rasmussen’s turn to confess. He admitted that he 
had sinned against the tenets of brotherly love when, in his report 
of the meeting at Spring Prairie, he had accused Rev. A. C. Preus 
of having knowingly and deliberately told an open lie. This state- 
ment Rasmussen now retracted. Ottesen read Rasmussen’s synodical 
Report, whereupon Rasmussen also made a formal retraction of 
these statements against the Synod pastors. He had made his sar- 
castic charges that the Preuses attempted to pin him down with refer- 
ences to the Latin and Greek texts, not to hurt their character but “in 
the heat of the controversy.” Rasmussen publicly asked A. C. Preus 
to forgive him for all the uncharitable remarks that he had made 
about him. He confessed he had unduly stressed the implications 
that might be found in the word almindelig, and that it need not be 
Grundtvigian. Ottesen, the official counsel for the Synod pastors, 
declared that he could distinguish two distinct periods in the pas- 
torate of Rasmussen, namely, before and during his association with 
Kielsen. On inquiry whether or not he regarded Fielsen’s ordina- 
tion as valid, Rasmussen said that he had regarded it as such, as he 
had seen a document from Rey. Francis Alex. Hoffman to this 
effect. After he had heard what the Synod pastors had to say on 
this point, he was not at all certain as to its validity..° Rasmussen 
was reprehended by the counsel for not having protested against 
Eielsen’s unchurchly practice of requesting laymen to pray. Ras- 
mussen replied that he was accustomed to this practice from Nor- 
way, and could see nothing wrong in it so long as it was done in 
an orderly way. Moreover, he could not see that this was contrary 
to God’s Word; in case he was convinced that such was the case, 
he would henceforth desist from the practice. The Synod men, and 
also Walther and Craemer, disagreed with Rasmussen on this point, 
which was consequently left unsettled. 


* Stub, for instance, had refused to make changes in the baptismal formula 
at Port Washington at the request of parents who branded the Synod version 
as being false. Three took their children home unbaptized. (See X. Maaneds- 
tidende, 1860, 286.) 

* K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 186. 


162 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Rasmussen went on to say that he had faithfully witnessed 
against the errors in Eielsen’s Old Constitution and had attempted 
to amend it. In reply to a question from Rev. A. C. Preus, he said 
that he had left Eielsen both on account of his doctrine and his 
personal conduct. Rasmussen’s congregational constitution con- 
tained the provision that the congregation’s pastor must be “‘con- 
verted to the Bishop of souls.” Rasmussen said that “ought” would 
have been better. After other points had been touched upon, Craem- 
er asked if Rasmussen’s and Thalberg’s orthodoxy could not be 
acknowledged on all points save on the question of prayer meetings. 
All the Synod pastors assented. On their side, Rasmussen and 
Thalberg acknowledged that the Synod pastors were orthodox, only 
Rasmussen was not convinced that the Synod pastors had the cor- 
rect doctrine of “lay activity”;7* for the Synod pastors said that a 
layman was denied by Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession 
the right to teach and admonish in a public meeting for edification.” 
This was too much for the pastors and the intermediaries, where- 
fore they “suspended” the acknowledgment of Rasmussen’s and 
Thalberg’s orthodoxy. 

Even if the parties thus failed to agree, much headway had been 
made. Rasmussen broke with the Synod pastors because of their 
extreme position, as he thought, against “laymen’s activity’; on 
the other hand, he broke with Eielsen for holding what he regarded 
as radical views in favor of “lay activity.’ From this quivering 
point of impossible neutrality, both sides naturally wished to dis- 
lodge him in the hope that he would come their way. While the 
Synod and Rasmussen factions were thus brought close together, 
neither side was satisfied, as some trivial thing might happen to 
break open the old sores again. 

During this conference it was found that the Norwegian leaders, 
who had little sympathy for “laymen’s activity,” and especially for 
prayer meetings, had much in common with the ‘Missourians,’ of 
whom Walther, at least, had been a pietist. The German leaders, 
however, had never really come into contact with a situation like 
that among the Norwegians, where piety, by the ground-swell of a 
popular awakening, had issued, not so much from the pastors, as 
from a very gifted layman. To Walther, “laymen’s activity” was 
a theoretic problem that could easily be referred to Article XIV of 
the Augsburg Confession and thereby automatically solved. It was, 
however, not so easily resolved by Walther’s great contemporaries 
in Norway, Prof. Gisle Johnson, Prof. Carl Paul Caspari, and 


““Lay activity” (Lagmandsvirksomhed) was a term that covered those 
functions that lie on the borderline between the well-defined provinces of the 
clergy and the laymen. This “lay activity’ might include public prayer or 
even preaching by the unordained, who, consequently, were called “laymen.” 

“Article XIV reads: “Of Ecclesiastical Order, they teach, that no one 
should publicly teach in the church or administer the Sacraments, unless he be 
regularly called.” (Jacob’s ed., Book of Concord.) 

* K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 192. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 163 


Bishop J. C. Heuch. On the other hand, their common view on 
“lay activity” and their frequent personal contacts made the Synod 
pastors feel a strong affinity for the “Missourians.’’ Not only did 
they and the “Missourians” agree on many points of formal doc- 
trine, but they also found that they agreed to a considerable degree 
in practice. At this time, also, negotiations were well under way 
to have the Norwegian students go to St. Louis, Missouri, for their 
education. 

No wonder, then, that Rev. H. A. Preus exults in the new-found 
love to the “Missourians” in the introduction to Kirkelig Maanedstt- 
dende for 1859: 


Indeed, how plainly has not the Lord shown us of how much im- 
portance our salvation is to Him, by this that He also in this country, 
which is harassed by hundreds of sects, has permitted us to find fel- 
low-believers and allies in the fight for the one Truth in the German- 
speaking, but orthodox, “Missouri” Synod. These men are rejected 
as intolerant and exclusive, but truth must be exclusive over against 
falsehood and error, light over against darkness; for what com- 
munion hath light with darkness, Christ with Belial? We must 
rejoice when we are condemned as being hard-hearted, intolerant, 
and unchristian, because we, like the ‘Missourians,’ would not let 
anyone take from us the most precious treasure that God in His 
grace has given us here on earth—His Word of Truth—and have 
no desire toward those who would satisfy us with stones instead of 
bread. Certain it is, that it also is a divine favor for which we 
cannot sufficiently thank God, that He has permitted us to come into 
such close relationship with such a body, to whom the Word of God 
surpasses everything else, and who would let go everything else in 
order to preserve the Word pure and undefiled... . 

It should be unnecessary to show more’ in detail what God by this 
association has done for our church body’s internal growth, confir- 
mation in the Truth, and its plain-spoken witness against all error. 
Merely to mention that which can be felt and touched, God has lately 
permitted us by our German brethren’s sacrificing help and coopera- 
tion to come into a more confidential and brotherly relation to the 
two Norwegian pastors, Rev. P. A. Rasmussen and Rev. H. L. Thal- 
berg; a thing which in no case can be without blessed results for the 
Norwegian Lutheran Church in this country, even if the future— 
which God forbid—should show that a full union is not brought 
about. As far as the Synod’s relation to the Ellingians is concerned, 
no essential change has taken place in the past year, except 1n so far 
that our Synod has arrived at a clearer acknowledgment of the errors 
and the divergent spiritual tendencies which are becoming more and 
more apparent in the Ellingian sect, just as, on the other side, a 
greater obduracy naturally must take place where the truth is thus 
opposed and rejected. God grant that over against them and other 
sects we may speak the truth in love! * 


This was not only a characterization of the year 18 58 but it was 
the keynote for years to come. 
* Thid., 1859, 2. | re aisle) 


1644 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Especially is this true of 1859 and 1860. In 1859 a controversy 
was waged about “‘laymen’s activity,” but it was so managed that a 
direct clash with Rasmussen was avoided. Kérkelig Maanedstidende 
for 1859 contains a number of articles by Rev. J. A. Ottesen, who 
attacked prayer meetings and “laymen’s activity” in general, taking 
care, of course, to designate what he regarded as the legitimate 
sphere for “lay activity.” 1° For this controversy he found valu- 
able material in the “Missouri” theological paper, Lehre und Wehre, 
and in Walther’s book, Kirche und Amt,'® which came to be highly 
prized in the Norwegian Synod. In reply to Paul Anderson and O. 
J. Hatlestad, who literally had filled Ole Andrewsen’s Norsk Lu- 
thersk Kirketidende (Norwegian Lutheran Church Times) *7 with 
articles about lay activity to the derogation of the State-Church ac- 
tivity, Ottesen fired a broadside of nine salvos in his nine theses on 
“That Laymen’s Prayer and Speech in Public Meetings of Edifi- 
cation are Contrary to God’s Word.” He based the whole discus- 
sion on Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession, stressing especial- 
ly the need of an external as well as an internal call to “publicly 
teach.” 28 Ottesen also made a searching inquiry into the doctrine 
and practices of the General Synod, of which the Northern Illinois 
Synod was a part, in a series of articles which he called “Blik 1 
Generalsynoden” (Glimpse into the General Synod). By writing 
a parallel set of articles about the “Missouri” Synod, he placed 
these two in juxtaposition. At the close of the General Synod ar- 
ticles, Ottesen paid his respects to Paul Anderson, who had said 
that, for sake of conscience, he could not join the Norwegian Synod 
because there had been at least one, or possibly two, Grundtvigians 
in that body; but he could belong to the General Synod, said Ot- 
tesen, where “practically any sort of error ‘so long as it is not en- 
tirely too crass’ can be publicly preached with a claim to constitu- 
tional protection.” *® Rev. J. A. Ottesen makes the most of Rev. 
Paul Anderson’s English Prologue,?° in which he admits that the 
Synod pastors were sincere in their adherence to the Confessions. 
Rev. A. C. Preus, in his customary somewhat objective style, wrote 
an article in which he tried to show that lay preaching was not only 
contrary to Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession, but contrary 
to Scriptures as well.”+ 

While carrying on this active offensive warfare, practically all of 
the Synod pastors were forced to rush to the defense of their Church. 
Thus Ottesen in the July and August issues of Kérkelig Maanedsti- 


* See especially his reply to all his critics (among them Rasmussen) in 
K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 145 ff. 

* For Ottesen’s sources see K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 187. 

7 See above, 141 ff. 

* K. Maanedstidende, 1850, 67. 

* Tbid., 1859, 118. 
. *“To the English Reader” in Norsk Luthersk Kirketidende, December 24, 
1857. 

= K. Maanedstidende, 1895, 164 ff. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 165 


dende, 1850, had to answer Rev. P. Anderson, who, in 1859, as Prof. 
Weenaas later, strangely enough repeated the old charges that the 
Norwegian Synod was Grundtvigian, because its constitution (of 
1851) was Grundtvigian.*? Similarly, in the August issue of Airke- 
lig Maanedstidende, Rev. A. C. Preus found it necessary to reply 
to Rev. O. J. Hatlestad, who had dug up the old bones of the long 
buried doctrine of conversion after death, and charged the Synod 
with it. Rev. H. A. Stub had to go through for the hundredth time 
the story of the Muskego troubles, this time succeeding in satisfy- 
ing the disgruntled elements somewhat, possibly because Rasmussen 
and Thalberg did not actively back up the malcontents.** Rev. H. 
A. Preus had to set right Rasmus Sorenson of Scandinavia, Waupaca 
County, Wisconsin, on the relation between life and doctrine, stress- 
ing the need of correct doctrine. The reason that Preus pounced 
upon such an obscure person, as he described him, was that the 
whole Ellingian sect was back of Sorenson’s pamphlet, Polgende 
vigtige Sporgsmaal (The Following Important Questions).2* A 
young missionary pastor in lowa and Minnesota, Rev. Laur. Larsen, 
also brought reports of skirmishes with the “licensed” pastors of 
the Northern Illinois Synod.” 

In this missionary report, Larsen discussed especially the pros- 
pects for a “university” among the Scandinavians. Contrary to 
his preconceived ideas from Norway, whence he emigrated in 1857, 
he now finds that it would be better to cut across the lines of na- 
tional kinship and work with the Germans rather than with the more 
closely related racial groups of the Northern Illinois Synod. These 
latter groups, in turn, made much of the fact that the “Missourians” 
were German, thereby expecting to capitalize the odium that the 
Germans brought upon themselves in the Scandinavian countries by 
coveting Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark. Further, the Luther- 
anism of Germany had long been under suspicion as being entirely 
too liberal, if not utterly unorthodox.?° 

The conferences at Luther Valley between Rasmussen-Thalberg 
and the Synod, though in nowise conclusive, were regarded by both 
sides aS paving the way for peace, and hence brought on a virtual 
cessation of hostilities in that quarter. With nominal peace estab- 
lished on that front, the Norwegian Synod was free to give its un- 
divided attention to Eielsen and the Northern Illinois Synod, with 
the result that Paul Anderson, Hatlestad, and others were given the 
battle they had been looking for at least since 1851. The Norwegians 
of the Northern Illinois Synod had been feeling entirely secure in 
the protection of the powerful General Synod, which in 1859-60 
comprised two-thirds of all the Lutherans in America. But as a 
result of its flagrant disregard of Lutheran doctrine and practice, 
the General Synod became involved in a disastrous struggle with 


a Ibid., 1859, 118. * Ibid., 1858, 127, and 1859, 50. 
* Tbid., 1859, 180. * Ibid., 1859, 47. 
Si bsa 1850, 42, 


166 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Dr. Walther and the “Missourians” which made its proud walls 
crumble, so that, from its high estate of commanding influence, by 
1868 it was reduced to barely one-fourth of the total Lutheran mem- 
bership in America.** Disrupted and discredited, the General Synod 
had to yield its position of preeminence among Lutherans to the 
strictly orthodox “Missouri” Synod. With the General Synod lead- 
ers more than occupied, the Northern Illinois pastors—Anderson, 
Andrewsen, Hatlestad—were left to defend the Norwegian sector 
alone. By throwing bombshell after bombshell into their midst, and 
by dividing the opposition by singling out the Swedes for special 
commendation,”* the Norwegian Synod leaders forced both the Nor- 
wegians and Swedes to take a more well-defined Lutheran stand over 
against the General Synod’s doctrinal laxity. To avoid being iso- 
lated, Paul Anderson had to adapt himself to the changing spirit and 
become a champion of the conservative faith. Up to 1860 we find 
Paul Anderson defending the Northern Illinois Synod’s connection 
with the General Synod, and, with the Swedes, hotly resenting the 
Norwegian Synod’s challenge to “come out from among them.” 

Despite the insulted air of the Scandinavian pastors of the Nor- 
thern Illinois Synod at the Synod men’s rebuke that their adherence 
to the General Synod was sinful, they nevertheless came ‘‘out from 
among them” as a result of the very conditions that the Synod men 
described. The early Swedish Augustana historian, E. Norelius, 
writes in 1870: 


Very soon the Scandinavians began to feel that their position 
within the [No. Ill.] Synod became increasingly unpleasant on ac- 
count of the loose confessionalism which the American leaders 
showed at every meeting. So long as they [the Scandinavians] 
were allowed to have their own convictions in peace, and so long 
as they had any hope of working up more faithfulness to the Con- 
fessions among the American and German leaders, they did not 
think of a separation. They even succeeded in bringing matters so 
far that the loose constitutional decision in regard to doctrine was 
changed to an unambiguous acceptance of the Augsburg Confession 
as a correct and true exposition of the Christian fundamentals. 
But in later years many lax Lutherans came in who did not wish to 
hear any talk of Confessional Writings, and who worked with all 
their might to tear down all the barriers to full doctrinal freedom. 
When the Scandinavians from bitter experience finally discovered 
that no hopes remained for pure Lutheran doctrine and practice 
within this synod, they decided to withdraw from it and form a new 
synod among themselves. This withdrawal took place in the spring 
of 1860 at a general meeting of the Scandinavian members of the 
Northern Illinois Synod.” 


77 See above, 102. 
3 K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 125, where H. A. Preus commends the Swedish 
organ Hemlandet for its positive attitude and otherwise commends the Swedes. 
2” FE. Norelius, Ev. Lutherska Augustana-Synoden i Nord Amerika och 


dess Mission, 22. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 167 


The crisis was brought on by an attempt to muzzle Rev. L. P. 
Esbjorn, who in 1858 was elected Scandinavian professor in the- 
ology at the Illinois State University, which was a Lutheran insti- 
tution at the time. Esbjorn was originally quite liberal in his 
views,°° but his contact with the ultra-liberal element in the Nor- 
thern Illinois Synod forced him to reexamine his position, with the 
result that he swung more and more toward a conservative position. 
When his position became manifestly at variance with the liberalism 
of his colleagues at Illinois State University, the authorities of that 
institution, in an effort to prevent him from widening the breach 
which was beginning to appear, resorted to the strategy of loading 
him down with so many secular subjects that he should find no time 
for theology. Protests were sent in by Esbjorn and the Scandina- 
vian leaders, but the situation became constantly more critical, as 
the General Synod, to which Northern Illinois belonged, was at 
this time engaged in a furious struggle with “Missouri” and could 
tolerate no insubordination in her own ranks. Finally the authori- 
ties forbade Esbjorn and the Scandinavians to have separate Com- 
munion, whereupon Esbjorn resigned and removed to Chicago, 
whither all but two of the Scandinavian students followed him. In 
a meeting at Chicago, April 23-28, 1860, the Scandinavians listened 
patiently for a whole day to accusations against Esbjorn and then 
voted unanimously to sustain him, thereby severing their relations 
with the Northern Illinois Synod.*t Retiring to Clinton, Rock 
County, Wisconsin, the Scandinavians organized the Scandimavian 
Augustana Synod, with a membership of eleven Swedish and eight 
Norwegian pastors. With the aid of the Swedish-Norwegian king, 
Carl XV, and friends in the two countries, the school was continued 
at Chicago under its new name, Augustana Seminary. Confessional 
Lutheranism won a great victory when the Scandinavians “came 
out from among them.” 

In a conference, on July 7, 1859, the Scandinavian element of 
the Northern Illinois Synod retracted their charges of Grundt- 
Vigianism against the Synod. ‘“Laymen’s activity,” the other out- 
standing issue, was left for a future conference. But this confer- 
ence could not be arranged, ostensibly because Ottesen’s serial, 
“Glimpse into the General Synod,” had been continued in the August 
issue of Kuirkelig Maanedstidende, although a truce was supposed 
to be in effect at this time. In spite of all that Rev. H. A. Preus 
could say in explanation, this “glimpse” had proved too sharp both 
for the Swedes and Norwegians. Other exchanges also took place; 
it is highly probable, however, that the newly formed Scandinavian 
Augustana Synod felt unequal to the strain of having conferences 
with the Synod pastors at this time. 


“Jj. A. Bergh in Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika, 62, 
says: “Esbjorn was both a pious and a learned man, but hardly from the first 
a completely orthodox Lutheran.” 

* For these acts see O. J. Hatlestad, Historiske Meddelelser, 62. 


168 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Although the Augustanans were in no position to take part off- 
cially in a free conference, they did sit in unofficially at the historic 
conference in “Our Savior’s Church” in Chicago, August 28-31, 
1860, between the Synod pastors and the Rasmussen-Thalberg fac- 
tion, which now included also Rev. J. Fjeld and Rev. Nils Amlund.* 
Since both Rev. P. A. Rasmussen and Rev. H. L. Thalberg had re- 
ceived ordination from ‘“‘Missouri,’ the Rev. Prof. Craemer of 
that synod was welcomed as much by these as by the Nor- 
wegian Synod pastors. Since this meeting dealt with questions 
which are of paramount importance in the history of the Nor- 
wegian American Lutheran Church, we shall give a full report of the 
proceedings. 

Rasmussen began by saying.that he had not changed his mind on 
the outstanding question, namely, “lay activity.” Laymen should 
have the right to teach and pray publicly, (1) because they belonged 
to the universal priesthood of believers; (2) because Christian 
brotherly love demanded it; and (3), because it was the practice 
of the early Christian Church. 

All agreed concerning the priesthood of believers; but to what 
extent could this be applied in this case? In both the Old and the 
New Testament, the priesthood must offer itself completely to the 
Lord either immediately by a surrender of heart, soul, and mind, 
or mediately by turning to its neighbor to serve him. Not only does 
the believer serve by his temporal gifts, but more especially by his 
spiritual gifts. To do this fully, he cannot restrict himself to an 
occasional private communion in prayer, but the Christian has the 
right to meet with fellow-believers for prayer and mutual admonition. 

In regard to the second point, Rasmussen said that the Chris- 
tians were all children of the same Father; hence they must be 
bound by a love more sincere than even that of kinship. For mutual 
edification and warning Christians desire in fellowship to pray to 
God. These meetings must not conflict with the order God himself 
has prescribed: nor should they conflict with the rules laid down by 
the Lutheran Symbols. No one should pose as a teacher or a mouth- 
piece of others, but he should edify and be edified by the others. In 
substantiation of the third point he cited I Cor. xiv: ‘Ye may all 
prophesy,” giving all the right to prophesy; but for the sake of order 
only two or three should exercise the right. Laymen like Stephen, 
Philip, and Apollos, preached. 

The other side took up the discussion, conceding everything ex- 
cept the point on which the whole thing hinged: How and when can 
a layman teach and preach? So long as it was clearly understood 
that no one was to teach, but that everything was to be for mutual 
edification, no objections would be raised by Ottesen, Larsen, H. A. 
Preus, and Koren. Opportunity should always be given for ques- 
tions and counter remarks, as, for instance, in this present assembly ; 


" K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 160. Seven Swedish and four Norwegian pas- 
tors of the Northern Illinois group were present. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 169 


when one preaches (teaches), on the other hand, such questions and 
counter remarks would be entirely out of place, since, as Clausen 
observed, the pastor speaks in behalf of everyone both to God and 
to his fellow-believers. When anyone stands forth and says, “Let 
us all pray,” he prays for all; hence is the teacher of all. Who 
would have the temerity to stand forth and argue against a public 
prayer, regardless of its patent errors? As a protection against im- 
position, the congregations delegate this form of “teaching” to a 
rightly called and properly examined pastor. 

Rasmussen objected to the extension of “‘teaching”’ so that it em- 
braced prayer. Why this nervousness about error in praying? Is 
prayer a gift of God, or simply a fruit of study? If it is.a gift of 
God, then anyone who possesses this gift certainly can pray in a 
God-pleasing and edifying manner. To this the other side replied 
that, although prayer was a gift of God, it was not an immediate 
but a mediate gift, obtained through the medium of a humble “stud- 
ium,” or zealous study of God’s Word. 

Arriving at the crux of the matter, the Synod pastors were asked 
to give their interpretation of Article XIV of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, which reads: “Of Ecclesiastical Order, they teach, that no 
one should publicly teach in the church or administer the Sacra- 
ments, unless he be regularly called.” By this they understood that 
God has arranged it so that one or more who are delegated to this 
task should teach in the congregation in behalf of all. God himself 
gives teachers through the congregation’s call, whose duty. it there- 
fore becomes to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments. 
“Publicly” is not restricted to church worship and public gatherings 
where anyone who wishes may come; but the “teaching” is done in 
behalf of the “public” (i. e. officially in behalf of the whole assem- 
bly, the congregation, and of God himself) when a pastor in pri- 
vate admonishes a single individual in virtue of his position as the 
minister of all. Anyone, then, who presumes to teach in behalf of 
all in a public assembly without being called thereto is a thief.** 
If, therefore, laymen wish to speak in public gatherings, they must 
do it for mutual edification, not as teachers. Ample opportunity 
must be given for dissent, seeing the layman has no call, but must 
speak as an equal to equals. 

To this conception of the “public” ministry Rasmussen agreed. 
Besides this, however, there is a priesthood of believers in virtue of 
which all Christians have the right and duty to edify and admonish 
each other mutually. One or a few could do this according to their 
gifts. Under all circumstances order must be observed. 

The pastors heartily concurred in Rasmussen’s positive presen- 
tation, but they could not agree with what they termed his negative 
presentation. Rasmussen’s argument really amounted to this, they 
said, that so long as a layman did not specifically say that he spoke 
in behalf of all, he did not transgress Article XIV. Rasmussen also 

* K. Maanedstidende, 1860, 321. 


170 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


had a different view of the word “mutual” from that of the pastors. 
Other points also needed to be cleared up. 

Rev. B. J. Muus charged his fellow-pastors in the Norwegian 
Synod with too much formalism on this point. He confessed his 
inability to understand Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession. 
The article determines that there is a public ministry with privileges 
and duties not shared by laymen, but a sharp demarcation of 
the spheres he has never been able to find, as the Scriptures enjoin 
upon every Christian to serve himself and his neighbor according 
to the measure of grace and faithfulness God has given him. He 
believed that there is a universal priesthood whose functions it is 
to sacrifice and teach, and to these duties a person is set aside as soon 
as he becomes a Christian. This right cannot be transferred to 
others, in the sense that one thereby surrenders his own right to 
exercise it himself, in case the edification of others demands it. 
Where an ordained pastor is called, the public exercise of this right 
is assuredly delegated to him: where, however, the pastor either can- 
not or will not exercise this duty, there the Christian must himself 
exercise it. In case the pastor’s right is unduly stressed so that the 
Word is not rightly preached, then one goes too far in one direction; 
if the laymen’s rights are stressed so much that the work of the 
pastor suffers, then one goes too far in the opposite direction. He 
could absolutely not see any sharp and clear line of demarcation. 
That the public and extemporaneous prayer by a layman was sinful, 
he had never before in his life heard. On the contrary, he thought 
this was beneficial, as it aroused the feelings, and these were most 
readily reached through that channel. 

Fjeld also thought they were far too formalistic on this point. 
He, too, had never heard that laymen could not pray in their own 
words in a public assembly. He believed that laymen could edify 
each other otherwise, but when they enter the church to preach they 
clearly overstep their bounds. 

The Synod men observed that they had neither denied laymen the 
right to assemble for mutual edification, nor had they ever said it 
was a sin to pray; the admonition, however, must be mutual, and 
no one should speak in behalf of all as their teacher and mouthpiece. 
The laymen’s admonition must take a different form from that of 
the pastor, who admonishes in behalf of all. Scriptures designate 
two forms of admonition: the mutual form common to all, and the 
public or official form reserved to the one set aside for this purpose. 
Since prayer can never be mutual, but always must be in behalf of 
all, it follows that prayer by a layman in behalf of all is contrary 
to Article XIV, and if contrary to Article XIV, also contrary to 
Scriptures, hence sin. But it has never been baldly stated that 
public prayer is sin, they said. Certainly a layman might pray for 
others when he utters the church prayers in unison with others. 
There would be no sense in assuming that he prays in his own name 
when he prays aloud in an assembly. Best of all, of course, is the 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 171 


prayer in one’s closet. The only motive for praying aloud is to 
pray in behalf of all, that one might thereby lead men to God; but 
this is to be the mouthpiece of all, hence contrary to Article XIV. 

To focus the discussion, Rev. Prof. Craemer suggested a thesis 
and anti-thesis as follows: 


When it becomes actually apparent that the assembly in truth is 
public worship, then it is contrary to Article XIV for anyone with- 
out a regular call to publicly teach, admonish, pray, or administer 
the sacraments. [Unanimously accepted. The anti-thesis reads]: 
It is not meant that when all these parts are executed that then first 
a breach of Article XIV occurs, but whoever, without regular call, 
performs any of these functions in an assembly, which in truth is 
public worship, transgresses Article XIV. 


Rasmussen and Fyeld objected that though laymen could pray 
in a sinful manner, it was not thereby conceded that any layman 
who prayed in a public assembly transgresses Article XIV. The Sy- 
nod men retorted that Article XIV said more; not only could the 
laymen pray in a sinful way, but everyone who, without call, pub- 
licly taught (to which belongs public prayer, admonition, and cor- 
rection in behalf of all, for all, and over all) transgressed the ar- 
ticle. Since no agreement could be reached on this point, it was 
voted to defer discussion on it for the time being. 

Like a ray of sunshine on the darkening horizon is Rev. A. C. 
Preus’s historical sketch on the subject: 


The difficulties . . . connected with “lay activity” have their roots 
in conditions that are older than we are, since they spring from 
conditions in the Mother Church in Norway. When H. Hauge 
sixty years ago appeared, the Norwegian clergy was for the most 
part unbelieving and perverted, and the few who still could be ac- 
counted as believing pastors, were nearly all steeped in pietistic 
errors. Without trying to determine whether or not Hauge acted 
in accordance with churchly order, it seemed [to Preus] that if 
Hauge had remained mute, the stones would have spoken. Hauge 
and all believers were persecuted, even with violence, but the awaken- 
ing among the laymen was not thereby stopped. The desire for bet- 
ter spiritual food than that offered in the marrowless rationalistic 
sermons was requited in the godly assemblies which the unbelieving 
clergy sought to prevent. From that time began the laymen’s 
anxious fear that they would be deprived of their right to come 
together about God’s Word. Hauge, in the meantime, sought strenu- 
ously to prevent every excess, but his rules were more and more left 
out of consideration, and about twenty to thirty years ago everyone 
who either really was, or merely imagined himself to be, awakened 
thought that he had to go out and preach. While the “laymen’s 
activity” thus became more and more unrestrained, on the other hand, 
a very gratifying change for the better was taking place among the 
clergy, whereupon the question naturally arose as to the proper 
boundaries between the teaching office and the spiritual priesthood. 


172 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


As a result of the discussions that arose, there was effected as good 
an arrangement of “laymen’s activity’ as could be expected under 
the State Church system. The question has now pressed itself upon 
us, and that it has become a burning issue under our free institutions 
is not surprising. It has, however, been forced upon us by our oppo- 
nents, since I do not know of as much as one instance where a pastor 
has had any unpleasantness with a single member of his congrega- 
tion because the member was denied his full rights according to the 
priesthood of believers. When we have been forced to witness 
against the abuses to which our congregations are exposed from 
persons invariably outside of our Synod, this has been interpreted 
as though we would deny the laymen the rights which they in the 
darkest hour of need have won for themselves, only quite often to 
abuse it later.” 


After having discussed the fundamental differences between a 
church service by a pastor and a mutual edification meeting by a 
layman, Preus went on to say the “mutual” was not conditioned 
merely by the opportunity to make reply, since the number of speak- 
ers 1s a pure accident. Even when one person speaks, so long as it is 
clearly understood that he can be answered, it is “mutual.” 

Rev. P. A. Rasmussen proposed the following five theses: 


1. Believing Christians have the right to edify themselves mutu- 
ally with prayer, the reading of God’s Word, and admonition. 

2. God’s Word shows us that they have such a right through the 
spiritual priesthood and according to the law of brotherly love. 

3. Believing Christians can exercise this right in many ways, 
partly by private intercourse on accidental occasions, by family wor- 
ship, and by gatherings called together for mutual edification. 

4. In such gatherings no one must on his own account pose as a 
teacher of the others, nor presume to exercise authority over the 
others, since all believing Christians, as spiritual priests, have equal 
rights. 

5. If, for the sake of order, one or more lead such meetings, or if, 
on account of the gifts, only a few can pray or admonish and thereby 
exercise the right which belongs also to the other believers, they 
do not thereby have any authority over the others or any advantage 
over these, since all have the same right even if a few on account of 
the gifts exercise it, and a few for the sake of order lead such 
meeungs.” 


Paragraphs one, two, three, and four were unanimously accepted 
without discussion. 

Against paragraph five a whole babel of voices were raised. 
The Rev. Prof. Craemer raised the objection that the line of demar- 
cation between public teaching and mutual edification was entirely 
deleted by this paragraph. No one but the pastor should lead other 
meetings than family devotions. No distinction was here made be- 
tween private meetings and public worship; anyone who undertakes 


* Thid., 1860, 327. 
* Text in K. Maanedstidende, 1860, 329. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES V7 


to conduct even a private meeting exercises authority, and no one 
has a right to do this except he be called by the congregation. 

Rasmussen repeated that no authority was given the leader. By 
“prayer,” he added, was meant audible supplication to God in one’s 
own words. Clausen said that it very often happened that prayer 
took the form, not of an address to God, but an admonition to one’s 
neighbors. He further said that a sickly emotionalism often be- 
came manifest in these prayers, the most touching expressions being 
chosen in order to make the prayer “spiritual.” Muus was not 
afraid of emotionalism. To the newly converted it was a means of 
arousing the lethargic flesh to a more vigilant struggle against sin. 
Even in the case of the more mature Christian, the feelings should 
not be neglected. Craemer dissented again. Larsen saw no great 
danger in the meetings so long as order was maintained and they 
were conducted on a “mutual” basis. Fjeld wished to maintain the 
integrity of the teaching estate; while it was understood that the 
pastors should preside at public worship, he could not see but that 
it would be a limitation of the laymen’s rights to forbid them to 
pray in public assemblies. 

Rev. A. C. Preus declared that he would vote for the paragraph. 
It was his sincere desire to go as far as he could without sacrificing 
the truth to heal the breach between the Synod and Rasmussen. It 
had been his constant sorrow that his church should be separated 
from the Haugean element, which was the salt in the State Church in 
Norway, and in America was chiefly represented by Rasmussen. He 
was, therefore, willing to make every possible concession, short of 
sacrificing the truth, to bring about a union. 

Rev. J. A. Ottesen would not be blinded by a sentimental desire 
for union. To him truth was the chief thing, and this truth he had 
himself expressed in writing and speech. 

Craemer now said that Rev. A. C. Preus was right when he had 
said that prayers could be uttered in public without being in behalf 
of all. In practical instances one could not make consistent appli- 
cations where the offenders were sincere but uninstructed. One 
must quite often patiently submit to much that was unsound and frail 
in practice—only one must constantly bear in mind that it is frail 
and unsound. | 

Rev. P. A. Rasmussen said that he subscribed with all his heart 
both positively and negatively, to Article XIV of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, but that he was unwilling to subscribe to a doctrine built on 
an inference from this article. After Rev. C. L. Clausen had again 
spoken, the fifth paragraph was amended to read: 


5. If for the sake of order one or more with the consent of the 
housefather or the assembly leads such meetings, and if only one or 
a few exercise such a right to pray and admonish, under the acknowl- 
edgment that other believers have the same right, the mutuality of 
the edification is not thereby destroyed, and these few do not thereby 
have authority or preéminence over the others. 


174 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


In favor of this were A. C. Preus, Clausen, Muus, Fjeld, Ras- 
mussen, Amlund, and Brodahl—in all seven. Against it were Otte- 
sen, Larsen, Koren, Brandt, and Magelssen—in all five. The Synod 
pastors were thus divided four for and five against the resolution. 
H. A. Preus was absent. 

At the time of adjournment, Rasmussen proposed that they meet 
again, and the Synod men readily accepted the invitation. The time 
was set for five o’clock next morning (August 31, 1860). Koren 
made a declaration that, though the Synod pastors had received the 
impression at the Luther Valley meeting that Rasmussen held er- 
roneous views on Articles XIV of the Augsburg Confession, thereby 
making a schism imminent, they now note with pleasure that they 
were mistaken. This conference has brought out the fact that the 
divergence between the parties is not so great that it should be a 
barrier against active fellowship between them. This declaration 
was signed by all the Synod pastors present. 

H. A. Preus had not been present the last two days of the meet- 
ing, hence added a note to the report in Kirkelig Maanedstidende 
saying that he could not subscribe to this declaration, nor to the 
five articles. Nor did he approve of all that was said by his fellow- 
pastors in the Norwegian Synod.*° 

The result of this gruelling conference indicated that the Nor- 
wegians were too evenly matched in strength for either side to carry 
the day decisively. When four Synod pastors joined Rasmussen, 
Thalberg, and Amlund, this combined vote only gave a margin of two 
over the Synod pastors who were opposed to the settlement. When 
the latter group was further reénforced by Rev. H. A. Preus’s vote 
and influence, this faction was by far the stronger, though outvoted 
by one vote. It was evident that outside influence alone could break 
this virtual deadlock, and no greater force was known in the Lutheran 
Church than that which was thrown into the breach—Dr. C. F. W. 
Walther. His commanding scholarship and powerful personality 
swept the field clear of opposition from all quarters. After two 
years of deadlock, Prof. Walther succeeded in resolving the ques- 
tion to the satisfaction of both factions at the Synod meeting at 
Holden, Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1862.37 His masterly 
presentation is of sufficient historic interest to merit a full report. 

Prof. Walther divided the subject into three parts: (1) the spir- 
itual priesthood of believers; (2) the special office of the ministry in 
the congregaion established by God (special priesthood) ; and (3) 
how necessity knows no laws, hence supersedes the regular order in 
this matter (emergency priesthood). 

In regard to the first Prof. Walther said that Paul, in Rom. iii. 2, 
declared of the Old Testament Church, or the believers at that time, 
that “unto them were committed the oracles of God.” They were, 
therefore, the possessors and the stewards of God’s Word, or the 


* K. Maanedstidende, 1860, 338. 
*™ Report, 1862, 12. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 175 


ministry. When factionalism arose in Corinth between the fol- 
lowers of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, and each faction gloried in 
its leader, the apostle said to them: “Therefore let no man glory in 
men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; 
all are yours; and ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (I Cor. iii. 21- 
23). The apostle here says that these illustrious leaders and all 
that they had belonged to the Church. The office of the ministry is 
therefore not to be regarded as a private privilege, which alone be- 
longs to the minister of the Gospel, but it is a common privilege be- 
longing to all the true members of the Church. To them Peter 
therefore says: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, 
an holy nation, a peculiar people: that ye should show forth the 
praises of him, who hath called you out of darkness into his mar- 
velous light” (I Pet. 11.9). Believing Christians therefore should 
not think that it is enough if they themselves hear, receive, and 
believe God’s Word; they should not think that they have no re- 
sponsibility for the preaching of the Word and the administration of 
the Sacraments also to others, so that they could comfortably say: 
“This is what we have preachers for.” No, the one to whom God 
has given faith, him He has also thereby made a spiritual priest or a 
preacher and on him placed the care for his neighbor’s salvation. 

When the Lord Himself said: ‘Thus it is written, and thus it 
behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. 
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his 
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke xxiv. 46, 
47), He does not lay this duty upon merely the apostles and the min- 
isters, but upon the whole Church, that is, upon all believing Christians 
until the end of days. He who does not wish to be a preacher, he 
does not wish to be a Christian either ; for a preacher and a Christian 
are identically the same. 

The whole New Testament, therefore, is full of admonitions to 
the Christians to use God’s Word not only for themselves, but also 
for their neighbors, for their brethren. Thus we read in Col. iii. 16: 
“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching 
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord”; and in Eph. vi. 14, 
15: “Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and 
having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with 
the preparation of the gospel of peace’; and in I Thess. v. 11-14: 
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, 
even as also ye do. ... Now we exhort you, brethren, warn 
them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, 
be patient toward all men.” On the other hand, we read in II Thess. 
iii. 14, 15: “And if any man obey not our words by this epistle, note 
that man and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed” ; 
and in Matt. xviii. 15: “Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass 
against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone,” 


176 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


and in I Cor. vi. 5: “Is it so that there is not a wise man among you? 
no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?” and 
in Eph. v. 11: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works 
of darkness, but rather reprove them’; and in Phil. 1. 27: “Only 
let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ; that 
ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the 
faith of the Gospel’’; and in I Pet. iii. 15: “And be ready always to 
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope 
that is in you with meekness and fear”; and in Matt. x. 32, 33: 
“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I con- 
fess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall 
deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which 
is in heaven”; and in Heb. x. 24: “And let us consider one another 
to provoke unto love and to good works”; and finally, James v. Io, 
20: “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert 
him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the 
error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a 
multitude of sins.” 

From all this it is apparent that every Christian not only has 
the office of the ministry, but that he also, if he at all wishes to be a 
Christian, must perform its duties, so that he also confesses the 
Word, teaches, admonishes, confesses, reproves, and in every way has 
a care for his neighbor’s salvation; that is, for his conversion as well 
as for his preservation in the faith. In all things a Christian must 
show that he is a spiritual priest over against his own people, his 
own spouse, his own children, his own brothers and sisters, his own 
servants, his own neighbors and friends, and over against all, where 
and when God brings him into contact with them. For all men he 
shall perform the ministry of the Word in burning love and pious 
wisdom. 

But the Lord sees, secondly, how Christians are beset by the 
frailties of flesh and blood, and on account of this frailty and weak- 
ness of the average Christian, God has instituted a special office of 
the ministry of the Word. According to God’s Word certain per- 
sons who are prepared, gifted, equipped and tried for this office 
should be elected, called and set aside from the Christians in general, 
to perform these offices publicly among them, and in their name these 
preach the Word and administer the Sacraments, lead their meet- 
ings for mutual edification through God’s Word, and are, in fine, the 
mouth of the Christians. 

Wherever the holy apostles established Christian congregations, 
they, at their departure, did not entrust the office of mutual edifi- 
cation to the converted congregations, so that anyone could publicly 
teach and lead the others, but they placed certain persons, called 
elders or bishops, as leaders or overseers. Paul says to his companion 
and co-worker Titus: ‘For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou 
shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders 
in every city, as I had appointed thee. If any be blameless . . 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 177 


for a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God. . . holding 
fast to the faithful words as he has been taught” (Titus i. 5-11). 
These elders or bishops did not only have the call, like other Chris- 
tians, to use God’s Word over against their neighbors as spiritual 
priests, but they had definite congregations, whose spiritual service 
was entrusted to them alone. Peter therefore writes: ‘“‘The elders 
which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder. . . . Feed the 
flock of God which is among you” (I Pet. v. 1, 2). This is not 
only a good human ordinance, but it is an ordinance instituted by 
God Himself. Although the congregations elect their own elders 
or bishops, the Bible declares expressly that they are likewise in- 
stituted by God just as truly as the holy apostles and prophets. For 
St. Paul writes: “And he [Christ, God’s Son] gave some, apostles ; 
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and 
teachers” (Eph. iv. 11); and to such bishops as were elected by 
the congregations, the same apostle says: “Take heed therefore unto 
yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost 
hath made you overseers” (Acts xx. 28). Although Christians in 
their proper callings should teach privately, they should not put 
themselves forward as teachers of the whole congregation, or watch 
over it, or rule it, as this is the function of certain called persons. 
For it is written: “Obey them that have rule over you, and submit 
yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they that must give 
account’ (Heb. xii. 17). Again, it is written: “Let the elders 
that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they 
who labor in the Word and doctrine.’ Such bishops are indeed 
called the angels of the church, (Rev. ii. 1,8, 12, 18; iti. 1, 7, 14). 

The public ministry is therefore a gracious institution of the 
merciful God, whereby God’s Word can henceforth be richly and 
purely preached and false prophets be warded off, and the Sacra- 
ments be properly administered. Thus God’s whole dispensation, 
whether in the Church or the local congregation, is carried out in a 
good, blessed, and God-pleasing manner. 

Although all believing Christians in virtue of their faith have 
the office of priests, yet they should not perform their duties in such 
a way that they disturb or abolish the divinely instituted public min- 
istry of the Word. As urgently as the Bible exhorts Christians to 
be faithful and zealous in the fulfilment of their duties, it neverthe- 
less says: “My brethren, be not many masters” (Jas. iil. 1), and 
Paul, after saying, “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, 
etc.,” asks: “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? 
are all workers of miracles?’ (I Cor. xii. 28, 29). In Romans the 
same apostle says: ‘How shall they preach, except they be sent?” 
In public assemblies arranged for edification, the lay Christian should 
not teach, admonish, console, correct, lead in prayer or publicly ad- 
minister the Sacraments of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, as these 
are functions reserved for the Christians properly called and or- 
dained by God for this purpose. 


178 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


But, thirdly, necessity knows no law. In case of need, as, for 
instance, if the Christians have no publicly appointed pastor, or if 
he be a false prophet, or if he serves them so seldom that they are 
in danger of spiritual starvation in case nothing more were done 
among them, then it is not wrong if also laymen in such cases 
of need preach the Word and pray in public assemblies or publicly 
administer Baptism. For, since they as spiritual priests already have 
the office but refrain from its exercise only for the sake of order, 
and, since the dispensation is merely instituted for the sake of 
salvation, it is right that they in case of need break the mere ordi- 
nance and confidently use the right which they originally had, and 
hope that God in mercy will regard them and bless them. But they 
do not function according to the ordinance of God, but as emergency 
pastors lest needy souls be lost. The Lutheran Symbols therefore 
say: “Just as in a case of necessity even a layman absolves, and 
becomes the minister and pastor of another; as Augustine narrates 
the story of two Christians in a ship, one of whom baptized the 
catechumen, who after baptism then absolved the baptizer.”” (Scmal- 
cald Articles, App., Part II, 67, Jacob’s People’s Ed., p. 350.) So 
much for Walther’s exposition. 

After a very thorough discussion, in which both the Synod and 
the Rasmussen factions took part freely, the following theses were 


drawn up as a final settlement of the controversy between the Synod 
and Rasmussen: 


I. God has instituted the office of the public ministry for the 
public edification of Christians to salvation through God’s Word. 
Unanimously accepted. 

2. For the public edification of Christians, God has not instituted 
any other order which should be placed by the side of this. Unani- 
mously accepted. 

3. When one undertakes to lead the public edification of Christians 
by the Word, he undertakes and exercises the office of the public 
ministry. Unanimously accepted. 

4. It is sin when anyone without a call or in the absence of need 
undertakes this. Unanimously accepted. 

5. It is both a right and a duty in case of real need for anyone 
who can to exercise in proper Christian order the office of public 
ministry. Unanimously accepted. 

6. The only correct conception of need is that actual need exists, 
either where there is no pastor or one cannot be gotten; or if there 
is a pastor who does not rightly serve them, but teaches falsely; or 
who cannot serve them sufficiently, but so insufficiently that they 
cannot be brought to faith or be preserved in faith and guarded 
against error, and that Christians would succumb from lack of over- 
sight. Two voted against. 

7. When such need is at hand, it ought to be relieved by a definite 
and proper order, according to the circumstances. Unanimously 
accepted.™ 


* Text in K. Maanedstidende, 1862, 228. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 179 


This agreement removed the remaining obstacles in the way of 
church union, and Revs. P. A. Rasmussen, Nils Amlund, and John 
N. Fjeld forthwith joined the Norwegian Synod. Rev. H. L. Thal- 
berg did not join the Synod, but carried on his work independently 
until 1887; in 1890 he left for Norway. This was preéminently 
a victory for a moderately high-churchly anti-Ellingianism, back of 
which ‘‘Missouri” became more and more the directing force. Even 
if “laymen’s activity” no longer was a domestic issue within the 
Synod, it became more than ever the issue between the Synod, on 
the one hand, and the Augustanans and Eielsen, on the other. 


COAT DER RA LX 
DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 


Ill. GrowTH—ScHOOLS 


In the decade ending in December, 1860, much had taken place. 
Synods had been organized and dissolved, battles had been waged and 
unnatural alliances dissolved: Rasmussen had left Eielsen, and the 
Scandinavians had withdrawn from the Northern Illinois Synod. 
Two major issues—regarding the text of the Third Article of the 
Creed and “laymen’s activity’—-had been settled, one, permanently, 
the other temporarily, at least. The Synod had emerged strong and 
unified, the others, comparatively wounded and weakened. 

During this time the synods had grown apace. Eielsen’s Synod 
by 1860 had five pastors who served congregations in Illinois, Wis- 
consin, Minnesota, and Iowa, and possibly other states whither Fiel- 
sen had penetrated. The Scandinavian Augustana Synod, at its or- 
ganization in 1860, had eight Norwegian pastors, eight churches, 
thirteen Norwegian congregations, and 1,220 communicants. At its 
organizational meeting eight other pastors were ordained, at least 
one of whom, Osmund Scheldahl, was a Norwegian.t The Nor- 
wegian Synod also enjoyed a very vigorous growth during this 
time.” To the seventeen congregations that accepted the Norwegian 
Synod constitution in 1853 were added twenty-one in 1855, two in 
1857, eleven in 1859, and eighteen in 1861, making a grand total in 
1861 of sixty-nine congregations actually belonging to the Synod. 
From the president’s report that eighty congregations had no resi- 
dent pastor, it is apparent that about ninety-five congregations were 
served by its pastors in 1861.8 Of the seven pastors who took part in 
the organization of the Norwegian Synod in 1853,‘ one, Rev. C. L. 
Clausen, had retired from the active ministry in 1851, but was re- 
admitted into the Synod in 1861; he had in the meantime served 
at St. Ansgar, Iowa, in various capacities. Other pastors were ad- 
mitted into the Synod as follows: U. V. Koren and O. F. Duus, 
1854; J. St. Munch, 1857; P. Brodahl, C. F. Magelssen, Laur. 
Larsen, F. C. Clausen, N. E. Jensen, and B. J. Muus, 1859; and H. 


*E. Norelius, Ev. Luth. Augustana-Synoden i Nord Amerika (1870), 27. 
Also O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester i Amerika. 

* See Halvorsen, Festskrift, 83. 

*See President A. C. Preus, “Report to the Synod in 1861,” in K. Maa- 
nedstidende, 1861, 228. 

*See above, 129. 


180 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 181 


P. Duborg, 1860. The latter, a Schleswigian, was admitted from the 
“Missouri” Synod. At Rev. C. L. Clausen’s readmission in 1861, the 
pastoral list contained fourteen names.° Rev. H. A. Stub went 
to Norway for his health in 1861 and remained there until 1865, 
when he returned for a long pastorate in the Big Canoe congregation, 
Locust, Iowa. At the meeting in 1861, Rev. A. C. Preus spoke 
about a certain occurrence in his family that made him long for 
the mother country; but at the insistence of his congregations and 
many friends, he decided to remain in America. 

In spite of all its youthful foibles, Norwegian American Luther- 
anism was making splendid progress on the points of the Confes- 
sions, church government, and membership. The growth of the 
church, however, was not commensurate with the growth of the 
Norwegian population in America at this time. According to Dr. 
O. M. Norlie there were in 1840 hardly 1,000 Norwegians in 
this country; in 1850, about 15,000, of whom 12,678 were born in 
Norway; in 1860, about 50,000, of whom 43,995 were from 
Norway; and in 1870, about 150,000, of whom 114,240 were 
from Norway." 

This increase in immigration accentuated very sharply the great 
and growing need for ministers. Although some venturesome clergy- 
men did come over to serve their countrymen, most of the Norwegian 
pastors preferred to do almost anything in Norway rather than go 
to America. When Rev. Laur. Larsen, as the envoy of the Synod, 
came to Norway in 1860,* he made a very strong appeal to the un- 
appointed clergy, of whom there had been three hundred in 1857. 
He pictured the crying needs of the emigrants, and showed what 
heroic efforts were put forth by the few pastors already in America 
to serve their countrymen. Eight parishes were vacant, and eight 
others could easily be organized in case there was any hope of serv- 
ing them. Norwegians were streaming into the old settlements and 
were founding new ones on every hand. It devolved upon the 
church to provide for the spiritual welfare of these, but how could it? 
The men already in the field were exerting themselves to the very 
limit. One, Rev. C. L. Clausen, had retired from the ministry as a 
result of broken health, and another, Rev. H. A. Stub, was about 
to retire for the same reason. The others were blessed with ex- 
ceptionally good health and were destined to serve for an unusually 
long time, but at best the situation was none too good. Instead of 
expanding the work, there was a prospect of retrenchment if help 
were not forthcoming, as the pastors would not be able to stand the 
strain of their almost superhuman efforts for any length of time. 
Rev. B. J. Muus preached at twenty-two stations scattered over an 
area more than two hundred miles long, his parish equaling modern 


* For list see K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 225, 234, 235. 

Johs. JOossendal, Litt av Big Canoe Menighets Historie (1923), 14 ff. 
*O. M. Norlie, op. cit., 27. Also see above, 19. 

“See K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 40 ff., 67 ff. for Larsen’s appeal. 


182 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Denmark in size. Rev. N. Brandt had ten stations in several states ; 
Rev. H. A. Preus, fifteen; and Rev. H. A. Stub, fifteen. It is the 
duty of the Norwegian Church to help us; and our first and most 
crying need is men, he said. As a result of Rev. Laur. Larsen’s 
pleadings, a few young men did agree to come to America, though 
the immediate fruit of his mission was not very great. From his 
general impression of the Church of Norway, Larsen concluded that 
very little help could be expected from that quarter; if the Nor- 
wegians in America wanted pastors they would have to train them 
in their own schools on American soil. 

To this all-important project the young church bodies were to 
direct a great deal of their energies within the next decade or so. 
Since no unanimity existed among them, each faction, of course, 
had to build its own school in competition with the others. 

By far the most important event in Norwegian American Luther- 
anism, next to the founding of synods, was the founding of schools. 
The schools were not only training stations for the leaders out on 
the spiritual battlefields, but they were themselves an embodiment of 
the ideals and aspirations of their respective founders. Cherished as 
the very pupil of the eye, borne up by the energies, resources, and 
prayers of their supporters, enfolded with all the pride and love of 
high and low, watched with the happy or sorrowful eye of an over- 
fond parent, the schools became not only the focus of attention, but 
the centers of synodical activity and interest. In return, the synods 
expected much—too much—from their schools. The schools should 
be advanced posts where ever-waking sentinels would stand high on 
Zion’s walls and keep watch over every move both among the pagan 
Philistines and the “‘near-Christian” Samaritans. Not only that, but 
the schools, as the board of strategy, should interpret their moves 
and devise counter moves. In the full realization of their grave 
responsibility, the faculties of these schools became the centers of 
controversy and the leading spirits in both the offensive and the de- 
fensive warfare. Moreover, just as Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson had 
returned from a visit to the Mother Church in Norway with the 
realization that the church in America had to solve its own problems 
of church extension, so Rev. Laur. Larsen, destined to be an educa- 
tional leader among the Norwegian Americans, returned from Nor- 
way in 1860 with a clear conception that the young Norwegian Lu- 
theran Synod would have to provide its own teachers and leaders.1° 
The schools made these American Lutherans forever independent of 
the Mother Church and entirely capable of managing their own af- 
fairs; henceforth interference from Norway was not received with 
filial respect by these children who had been thrown upon their own 
resources. With these ties cut, the only alternative was for these 
immigrants to cast their lot unequivocally with their adopted land. 
These are a few of the complex ramifications of the school question. 

°O. M. Norlie, of. cit., 23. 

“Further reports of this trip, below, 107. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 183 


Chief among the resulting schools in point of influence and 
service is Luther College, an institution founded in 1861 by the 
Norwegian Synod. While each of the other two synods existing 
at this time, Eielsen’s and the Scandinavian Augustana, have school 
traditions which antedate the founding of Luther College, their 
schools did not exert such widespread influence, if they at all sur- 
vived. In few things were the differences between the Synod and 
the other bodies so markedly contrasted as in the matter of schools. 
Schools were placed first on the Synod’s program, with home-mis- 
sions among their countrymen in America second, and foreign mis- 
sions third. The other two concentrated their interests in a sliding 
scale on home missions, foreign missions, and schools. 

There is a historic reason for this great diversity of interests. 
Interest in foreign missions was strong in Haugean circles at 
Stavanger, possibly through influences from the Herrnhuts or the 
Quakers. As early as 1826, when the Quakers and Haugeans were 
making common cause against the overbearing state officials,‘ the 
first missionary society for the conversion of the heathen was estab- 
lished.12, John Haugvaldstad, Hauge’s successor, energetically sup- 
ported this cause, with the result that by 1841 sixty local societies 
were established. On August 8, 1842, these were organized into 
The Norwegian Missionary Society, which established its own mis- 
sionary school. Though it had the support of Prof. Kaurin of the 
theological faculty of the university at Christiania, it was a young 
man, Hans Palludan Smith Schreuder, who kindled such a warm 
flame of missionary interest that it has not subsided to this day. 
His ringing appeal, 4 Few Words to the Norwegian Church, could 
not be answered by the State Church, as the State Church had almost 
insurmountable obstacles to overcome before it could conduct foreign 
missions; a State Church by its very nature simply is not a mis- 
sionary church. 

But if the State Church was unable or unwilling to respond, 
the Norwegian church people responded with enthusiasm. The 
State Church’s inability to act made the Haugeans more than ever 
the promoters of foreign missions, Haugeanism and foreign missions 
thus becoming closely linked in the popular mind. Foreign missions 
became a genuinely popular activity, conducted by the people, and not 
by the officials of the State. In a time when sharp distinctions were 
drawn between the office-holding estates and the common people, 
the turn of affairs which made this cause a people’s cause was of 
paramount importance. The people had begun to assert their social, 
religious, and political rights over against the ruling estates in 1836, 
and now foreign missions became another cause which the Haugeans, 
in the name of the people, were promulgating. This new popular 
issue, as it really became, auspiciously came to a head in 1842, when 
the Haugean movement was on a decline after it had exerted itself 


™ See above, 25 ff. 
4 See above, 56 ff. 


184 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


to the utmost to bring about political and social reforms.** Foreign 
missions thus became the outlet for the popular religious energies 
that had by no means spent themselves. It was the people—the 
people—that espoused foreign missions and made it the object of 
its spontaneous interest and loving care. 

No wonder, then, that the groups in America like the Ellingians 
and Augustanans, who claim to be the propagators of genuine Hau- 
geanism, should espouse foreign missions. Sparks from the flames 
kindled by Schreuder also started fires in nearby fields; it was the 
foreign mission impulse that drove several of the early pastors— 
Clausen, Stub, and others—into the home-mission fields in America. 

It was far different with the question of higher education. Al- 
though the Royal Frederik University in Christiania, founded in 
1813, is about a decade and a half older than the first mission society 
founded at Stavanger in 1826, the people at large took very little 
interest in the university. The university was sponsored by the 
office-holding class and built by the State, and, according to the 
concepts of the day, it was to be used practically altogether by mem- 
bers of the “conditioned,” office-holding classes. This educational 
conception was never baldly stated; yet in such a number of ways 
had the common people been shown their proper place, that exceed- 
ingly few of their young men, regardless of their talent and promise, 
ventured to enter the university. To do so was to risk being snubbed 
by the entrenched classes of privileged youth, on the one hand, and 
ostracized from their own (lower) social class at home, on the other. 
Indeed, pioneers have often related how the sons of the wealthy 
landed clergy spent what the pioneers thought was an unjustifiably 
long time at school, and then came home and waited for years for a 
pastoral or other professional appointment.1* With the professional 
classes already overfilled, and with a class system operating, so that 
sons were expected to take up their father’s profession, and, of 
course, marry within their own class, it was not surprising that the 
upper classes did not encourage the lower to take up higher educa- 
tion, nor was it to be expected that the young men of the lower 
classes should wish to practically break with their own class for the 
doubtful rewards of higher education. When the son of a “bonde” 
fell in love with a girl in the “conditioned” class, she might have 
spirit enough to demand that proper provision be made for her 
betrothed, in which case he sometimes was sent to the university 
in order to elevate him into the “conditioned” class.1° 

With this sharp cleavage between the classes practically barring 
the sons of the common people from the university, it was not 
surprising that the common people failed to give the university 

“ This decline set in in 1839. See above, 51 ff. 
v7 For the unappointed clergy see Prof. Larsen’s report, above, 181. 
*Girls were not admitted to the university. The wealthy hired a tutor 


who instructed the boys and girls to a point where the boys could enter 


some higher school, at which point the education of the girls was regarded 
as sufficient. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 185 


cordial support. If anything, the university became a source of irri- 
tation, as it very frankly catered to the “conditioned” classes and 
became an instrument for the perpetuation of a class, which, during 
the social revolution stretching roughly from 1826 to 1840, was 
blamed for all the social and economic ills of the common people. 
The university had regained the confidence of the people to some ex- 
tent through the work of Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari, but 
on account of the slow working of the composite Norwegian mind, it 
continued to be associated with an odious social system long after 
that system’s dissolution. In the mind of the average emigrated 
Norwegian, higher education was bolstered up practically altogether 
by official support; it was by and for the office-holding classes. 
Missions, on the other hand, were supported by the common people 
as their pet project; foreign missions were by and for the common 
people. 

Besides taking a prominent part in these social conflicts, the 
Haugeans more especially looked upon the university as the fallow 
seed-bed of academic Christianity which as yet commanded neither 
their respect nor their confidence. When their leaders on American 
soil saw in the higher institutions of learning their only hope for 
procuring trained workers, the people grudgingly supported them, 
so that after infinite labor schools were indeed built. But the lay 
Haugean movement, built fundamentally on the principle of “laymen’s 
activity,’ naturally could not muster much enthusiasm for a pro- 
ject that would superpose a pastoral class over the “laymen.” Con- 
sequently neither the Ellingians nor the Augustanans were able to 
popularize higher education. This task was reserved for the Nor- 
wegian Synod, although its success was very variable after the first 
flush of enthusiasm by which Luther College was built in 1861. 

There is a tradition often repeated in FEielsen’s Synod,?® but as 
often denied by the Augustanans,’” that EKielsen made arrangements 
to have Paul Anderson receive instruction from a Presbyterian min- 
ister, the Rev. Lemuel Hall. No date is given for Eielsen’s good 
offices; but if this took place, it must be regarded as having taken 
place before Anderson entered Beloit College sometime around 1844, 
or possibly a year or two later. 

Even if there may be doubt in regard to Eielsen’s part in getting 
Paul Anderson off to school, inasmuch as Paul Anderson himself 
denies him any share in it, there can be no doubt that Eielsen wrote 
into the Old Constitution ** the recommendation that ‘““Those who are 
gifted with aptitude for teaching must procure the necessary knowl- 
edge as far as circumstances permit.” Without stopping to inquire 
what Ejielsen might have meant by “necessary knowledge as far as 

**E.g. Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 79; 
and Nt t Anledning Red Wing Seminariums Femogtyve Aars Jubilaeum 

1904), 6. 
{ ma Hatlestad, Huistoriske Meddelelser, 56; and Rev. J. C. Jensson, 
American Lutheran Biographies, 25-27. See also above, 95. 
* Paragraph nine, see above, 108. 


186 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


circumstances permit,” we see that Eielsen does take a stand for 
education in this Constitution. 

A third link in the chain of evidence that Eielsen had some 
interest in education is the fact that his synod established the first 
school for training teachers and preachers among the Norwegians in 
America. At the yearly meeting of Eielsen’s Synod at Lisbon, H- 
linois, in 1854 Eielsen moved that, in view of the great need for 
pastors, they should establish ‘“‘a seminary for the instruction of 
talented young people in the knowledge most necessary for the per- 
formance of said office.’ This motion was seconded by Rev. P. A. 
Rasmussen and was unanimously adopted. At the same meeting it 
was decided to buy forty acres of land at Lisbon, on which stood a 
large dwelling. N.N. Rénning’says that the deal was closed before 
the meeting adjourned, and that eighteen hundred dollars was paid 
for it® In Der Lutheraner, October 23, 1855, Rasmussen, the pro- 
fessor-elect of the school, in a report to the Spring Prairie meeting 
in June, 1855, said that ours (i.e. the Ellingians) had procured land 
in January of that year, 1855, but that teaching had not commenced 
up to Easter-time because he had been too busily engaged in trans- 
lating and printing John Arndt’s True Christianity. He hoped to 
begin teaching in October, however, and would welcome those who 
were from eighteen to thirty years of age; but in case anyone from 
fourteen to eighteen showed proper Christian character, he would 
welcome these also.?? In the report of the Ellingians’ meeting at 
Koshkonong, October, 1855, Rasmussen said that it had been de- 
cided that the schools should open “this month” (October). Then 
he continues: *t “Rasmussen remarked that three pupils had re- 
ported their coming, and he wished now to have the meeting express 
its opinion whether it was not best to make a start even with these 
three.” It was so decided, the impression being that if only a start 
were made, more would enter later. With three students, Bjorn and 
Syver Holland and Olaus Landsverk, Prof. Rasmussen started the 
school at Lisbon and continued it until about May 1, 1856,?? when 
it was discontinued because Rasmussen withdrew from Eielsen’s 
Synod. While Rasmussen no doubt was the prime mover in this 
project, Kielsen took an interest in it and to some extent sponsored 
it. Thus the third link was broken. 

Fielsen’s next educational enterprise was the purchase in 1864 
of one hundred and twenty acres of land near Deerfield, Wisconsin, 
on which there was a building. With candidate of theology, Andreas 
Aaserod, as principal, the school opened in the fall of 1865. During 
the next two years an average of twenty pupils received instruction 
in religion, Norwegian and English grammar, arithmetic, algebra, 


* Red Wing Seminariums Festskrift, 7. 


® See also Rasmussen’s printed Report of the Spring Prairie Meeting in 
June, 1855, 12. 

* Rasmussen, Kirkelig Tidende, January, 1856 (Vol. I, No. I), 17. 

™N. N. Ronning, in Red Wing Seminariums Festskrift, 8. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 187 


geometry, German and Latin. The well-educated Aaserod undoubt- 
edly deserved every cent of his salary, which was set at two hundred 
and eighty dollars a year and the use of sixty acres of land. Im- 
provements on the buildings were planned, and efforts were put forth 
to secure a second teacher “when needed,” but all these plans were 
shattered by Aaserdd’s resignation after a little more than two years’ 
service. As a suitable successor could not be found, the school was 
forced to close its doors. 

The principalship of the “laymen’s” college evidently was no 
sinecure. Beginning with Rasmussen, the principal of the first school, 
we have a long list of short-termed principals, whose resignations 
rocked the whole school system. Aaserdd’s resignation possibly 
hinged on some detail, but back of this again is undoubtedly a series 
of incidents which made it clear to Aaserod as well as to his lay 
constituency that there were certain insurmountable difficulties con- 
nected with the school. There was, for one thing, too wide a gap 
between Aaserod and his nearest constituency, as even the most 
intelligent “laymen,’’ who saw very clearly the need for educated 
leaders, were very unclear as to what the duties of the principal 
of their school should be. The whole field of higher education was 
outside of the realm of their experience, and it was not so strange 
that they should make impossible demands of their principal and set 
up impossible educational ideals. At best, the leaders who had 
interest in education were not many in number. 

Throughout Eielsen’s Synod there had been a persistent propa- 
ganda against the educated State Church clergy, and Eielsen was 
reaping what he had sowed. Many of the lay people laid great 
stress on things of minor importance, such as garments, gestures, 
and the like. 


There were homes where only religious books were tolerated; and 
there were parents who would not permit their children to read, even 
in school, any book not distinctively religious. The writer is per- 
sonally acquainted with a man now living, who, while a boy of about 
fourteen, secretly came into possession of a geography, a book 
tabooed both by his father and pastor. When he was found out he 
even received a whipping for his disobedience.” 


With such ideals surviving in Haugean lore, at least till 1919, what 
might the educational and cultural views of the first generation of 
Haugeans in America have been under the domination of Elling 
Eielsen? It was possibly too true that many of the Ellingians con- 
sidered the higher schools as the “open doors to hell.” ** Nor does 
the calling of the educated Rev. H. L. Thalberg from Norway in 
1854 prove, as N. N. Ronning thinks, that Eielsen valued educated 


*M. O. Wee, Haugeamsm, 55. 
*N. N. Ronning, in op. cit., 6. 


188 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


men, for Rasmussen may have been the prime mover in this.° Had 
Thalberg remained with Eielsen, the argument would have had 
some weight; as it is, Thalberg’s leaving merely marks the passing 
of another educated man from Eielsen’s ranks. Whatever the reason, 
Aaseréd did resign and the school collapsed at his resignation. 
Somehow Elling’s schools did not thrive; their faint light flickered 
for a time and then went out. In a way these ill-fated educational 
ventures were martyrs to a cause that was so diametrically opposed 
to the uneducated “lay system” that, since no compromise was thought 
possible between them at the time, the weakest had to succumb. As 
true martyrs, these schools left a tradition of dissent which hastened 
the day when the cause would have enough friends to survive the 
shock of attack and even of resignations. 

All glory to the sturdy educational pioneers in the Haugean 
group who held out in the face of the most discouraging reverses! 
At almost every yearly and quarterly meeting of the Ellingian synod, 
they persistently brought the matter to the fore, and finally it was 
agreed in 1868 that a school should be established in Red Wing, pro- 
vided a principal could be procured who fully shared the conception 
of Hauge’s friends. Two and one-half acres of land were bought at 
Red Wing, and to the eight hundred dollars realized over and above 
the indebtedness from the sale of the Deerfield school were added 
twenty-five hundred dollars in a short time. Rev. Osten Hanson, the 
prime mover in this project, reported in 1870 that, though much stone 
had been hauled and some cut, the work was suspended for lack 
of means. 


In case [he says] we desire to preserve and support the pure truth 
among ourselves, to further schools, good knowledge, and correct 
enlightenment for ourselves and our children, and to disseminate 
the Word of Life among our fellowmen to the salvation of their 
souls, then the Lord demands . . . that we should renounce stingi- 
ness and offer something of this world’s goods for the promotion of 
God’s Kingdom.” 


In this dark hour, an offer came from Trinity congregation in 
Chicago to erect a building large enough both for a church and a 
school. Some help could be expected from the non-Lutheran citi- 
zens of Chicago and from the twenty thousand Norwegians there. 
To add still more color to the rosy proposition, it was calculated 
that enough of the school’s room could be rented out to make the 
school well-nigh self-supporting. For this fanciful proposition 
seventeen votes were cast, and for the pile of stone and mortar at 
Red Wing seventeen other votes were cast. To resolve this tie vote, 
lots were cast despite the protests of many, and the lot fell on Chi- 

* Thalberg himself denies that he was called by the Ellingians, though 


the evidence points in the opposite direction. (See K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 
182 


*Red Wing Seminariums Festskrift, 12 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 189 


cago. To satisfy the disgruntled westerners, it was decided next 
day to build two schools, one in Red Wing and one in Chicago. This 
motion was reconsidered, and it was finally determined that all 
should support the Chicago project. 

On August 27, 1871, the cornerstone of “Hauge’s College and 
Eielsen’s Seminary” was formally laid, Rev. Elling Eielsen making 
the chief address. In well-chosen words he depicted the great need 
of true Christian and civil enlightenment for a person who must at 
the same time be a true Christian and a useful citizen. True en- 
lightenment is gotten only from Him who is the light of the world, 
whose honor and glory the youth who pass in and out of these halls 
shall go forth and proclaim.?’ 

But the project that received such a fair start was to share the 
fate of its predecessors. In 1877 the idea of building a school in 
Chicago was abandoned, partly because no local support was given as 
Chicago had been laid in ashes by the terrible fire, partly because 
the West failed to give much support as crops were poor, and partly 
also because the westerners felt that the school should have been at 
Red Wing. On the property, which was worth thirty-four thousand 
dollars, a debt of sixteen thousand dollars had accrued. Conse- 
quently the convention of 1877 decided to abandon the Chicago 
school, leaving the property to the Trinity congregation on condition 
that the latter pay all the indebtedness. Seven years had thus been 
consumed in which no substantial progress had been made in the build- 
ing project, and only a very little class instruction had been given. 
Rev. C. O. Brohaugh declared that the whole school project had been 
one continual chain of disappointments. 

The only redeeming feature was that people had been aroused to 
the need of a school and were willing to sacrifice for the cause. Up 
to its last year at least, Rev. Elling Eielsen had given the cause both 
his financial and moral support, subscribing two hundred dollars at 
one time and encouraging others to give according to their ability. 
Others, who were in great financial straits themselves, gave from 
seventy-five dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars. Smaller gifts 
were also made, though the unfortunate decision to abandon the work 
already under way in Red Wing, for the questionable Chicago propo- 
sition, prevented this cause from becoming popular at this time. But 
Christian education had gained a great deal of ground; that everyone 
felt. It was the sense of the convention of 1877 that the cause 
should be carried forward. “If a seaman,” they said, “once, yes, 
several times, suffers shipwreck, he nevertheless goes out to sea 
again; and if a farmer loses his crop one year, he still sows again 
next year in hope of a better harvest.” 78 

When an opportunity came to procure a building and site at Red 
Wing, Hans Markussen Sande, on January 8, 1878, bought the prop- 
erty, worth twenty thousand dollars, for ten thousand dollars, mort- 


7 Ronning, op. cit., 13. 
* Tbid., 14. 


190 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


gaging his farm to do so. Hauge’s Synod, organized in 1875, took 
over the property, and the school opened in September, 1879, with 
Rev. I. Eisteinsen as temporary theological professor and acting 
president of the seminary, and Mr. G. O. Brohaugh as teacher of 
English and principal of the academy. Henceforth Christian educa- 
tion among those who formerly were the Ellingians went from vic- 
tory to victory. 

Before this could happen the thoroughgoing “lay system” had 
passed away, and a different type of churchmanship had little by 
little arisen. No one felt this more keenly than Eielsen himself. 
With Eielsen’s consent, these new forces had revised the Old Con- 
stitution in 1875 and called the church body with the revised con- 
stitution Hauge’s Synod.?® Eielsen probably did not fuliy under- 
stand what was going on, as he was now an old man. But he felt 
that something must be wrong when his “friends” would no longer 
either have his Old Constitution or have him as president. At the 
meeting in Jackson County, Minnesota, in the winter of 1876, E1elsen 
and some six or seven others organized themselves on the basis of 
the Old Constitution, and elected Eielsen president. These men, 
who called themselves the old tendency, in a most violent manner 
attacked the pastors of the Hauge’s Synod, whom they called the 
new tendency, especially on the point of the “free’’ Gospel. Eielsen’s 
personal views were set down in a letter to the Hauge’s Synod— 
probably written for him by someone else—stating that the newly 
organized synod harbored “new and dangerous tendencies in the 
direction of hierarchy and church formality.” °° Hauge’s Synod 
made answer in a sharp resolution declaring that Eielsen was not a 
member of said church until he had recalled his accusations against 
its pastors, and also had subscribed to the Hauge’s Synod constitu- 
tion.* This Eielsen refused to do, of course, and hereby his con- 
nections with the Hauge’s Synod were automatically severed. This 
was in 1876. It was thus only two years after Eielsen’s withdrawal 
that the school project won its first and lasting victory; in Eielsen’s 
little group no school has been built to this day, and his synod has 
now only six pastors. Eielsen thus has no share in a single success- 
ful educational venture. 

In regard to the Augustanans, not much can be said of their edu- 
cational projects at this time, as it was some years later that the 
Norwegian group in the Augustana Synod launched out on an edu- 
cational venture of their own. As members of the Northern Illinois 
Synod, the Norwegians took a very great interest in the foundation 
by their synod of the Illinois State University at Springfield, Il- 
linois. In this project, Rev. Paul Anderson took an especially 
prominent part, both as the foremost Norwegian churchman in his 


*®E. O. Morstad, Elling Etelsen og den “Ev. Luth. Kirke’ i Amerika, 
360 ff. 

” Tbid., 379. : 

= Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 130. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES IQI 


group, and as president of the Northern Illinois Synod in 1857-58. 
Kirketidende, the organ of the Norwegian group in the Northern 
Illinois Synod, did all it could for the cause both under Hatlestad’s 
and Andrewsen’s ownership.*? ‘This paper was especially enthus- 
iastic over Rev. Lars Paul Esbjorn’s appointment to the chair of 
theology at the Illinois State University in 1858. At this time, too, 
it resented very strongly the attacks leveled against the General 
Synod by “Missouri” and the Norwegian Synod. But when the 
tide turned, and Prof. S. S. Schmucker’s party in the General Synod 
attempted to impose its loose “American Lutheranism” on the Spring- 
field school, the Norwegians joined the Swedes in denouncing this 
confessional laxity as un-Lutheran. In reply, the Schmuckerites de- 
nounced the Scandinavians as a “formalistic and super-orthodox 
Symbolist party.” As a result of this struggle Esbjorn and the 
Scandinavian students left Springfield in 1860 and went first to 
Chicago and then to Paxton, Illinois, where they founded a school 
of their own.** To further emphasize their confessionalism, they 
called their school “The Augustana College Seminary” in honor of 
the Augustana, as the Augsburg Confession is sometimes called. 

In 1868 Rev. A. Weenaas was appointed professor at Paxton.** 
Born in Christiania, Norway, in 1835, he attended Christiania Uni- 
versity 1853-60 (A.M., C.T.) and came to America in 1868. Greatly 
influenced by the awakening under Gisle Johnson, he was highly re- 
garded also in Haugean circles. Not a man of exceptional parts, he 
had, on the other hand, good health and an unlimited amount of 
energy, was an inspiring teacher and an able writer. He had not been 
in Paxton long before he began to urge a separation of the Nor- 
wegians and Swedes.*® In 1869 the school was divided, and the 
Norwegian section, called Augsburg Seminary, was removed to 
Marshall, Wisconsin, where the Norwegians had bought a school 
building and campus worth eleven thousand dollars for four thousand 
dollars. What made this wonderful bargain possible was the willing- 
ness of the Norwegians to agree to the stipulation that a “complete 
American academy” be maintained in connection with the school. 

After the school had thus been divided, Weenaas continued his 
agitation for a separation of the Scandinavian Augustana Synod 
along national lines. As a result of his agitation, the Swedes and 
Norwegians in 1870 decided to part company. Strangely enough, 
this was accomplished without any hard feelings on either side, the 
actual separation taking place at Andover, Illinois, in 1870. Hence- 
forth the Swedes called themselves The Swedish Augustana Synod, 
from which the word “Swedish” was later dropped. 

It was natural that the Norwegians should organize themselves 
into a corresponding Norwegian-Danish synod, and steps were taken 


"See above, 140. * See above, 166 ff. 

sep Biographies of Weenaas in O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester, and 
J. A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie i Amerika. 

*O. J. Hatlestad, Historiske Meddelelser, 77. 


192 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


in that direction on June 17, 1870. Pending negotiations with Rev. 
C. L. Clausen and Rev. B. Gjeldaker, the Andover delegates 
chose to organize themselves temporarily as The Norwegian-Danish 
Augustana Synod; after electing Rev. O. J. Hatlestad as president 
and Rev. Miiller Eggen as secretary, the meeting adjourned. In 
conjunction with Clausen and Gjeldaker, the delegates again met at 
St. Ansgar, Iowa, August 10, 1870, and perfected the organization. 
At Clausen’s suggestion the new body adopted the following name: 
The Conference for the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America, better known as the Conference. Clausen was 
elected president and Eggen secretary of this new organization. 

Immediately there appeared a fly in the ointment. Rev. O. J. Hat- 
lestad, who felt slighted for several reasons, issued a call for a meet- 
ing at Jefferson Prairie for October 5, 1870. Together with Revs. 
David Lysnes, Ole Andrewsen, Andrew Scheie, and others, Hat- 
lestad now declared the action of the St. Ansgar meeting invalid, and 
proceeded to complete the organization of the Norwegian-Danish 
Augustana Synod, as though nothing had previously been done. 

In the controversy that ensued between the Augustana Synod 
and the Conference, the Augustanans had the satisfaction of getting 
possession of the Marshall property, which, however, by this time 
was weighed down by a four thousand dollar debt. Undismayed by 
this, the handful of Augustanans set about to pay the debt and were 
successful in maintaining an academy at Marshall. They also main- 
tained a theological school, of which Rev. David Lysnes was presi- 
dent, at Springfield parsonage, Winneshiek County, Iowa. In 1876 
Rev. David Lysnes and his theological students moved to Marshall, 
Wisconsin. In 1881 the academy and theological seminary were 
moved to Beloit, Lyon County, Iowa, where the school soon outgrew 
its quarters. To relieve this situation, the citizens of Canton, South 
Dakota, which is a mile from Beloit, Iowa, offered the school a 
building which originally had cost eight thousand dollars. In 1884 
the college and academy were moved to Canton, while the theological 
school remained at Beloit.** In 1918 Augustana College was moved 
to Sioux Falls, where it was combined with the Lutheran Normal 
School and given the name Augustana College and Normal School. 
It is now (1926) one of the four colleges of the Norwegian Lutheran 
Church of America. 

As their share of the divided Marshall school, Prof. A. Weenaas 
and the Conference took the student body and moved into three up- 
stairs rooms in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village of 
Marshall, Wisconsin. Of these three rooms, one was used for a class- 
room, the other two for students’ rooms. A few students, including 
Gjermund Hoyme, roomed at Prof. Weenaas’s home. In these 
cramped quarters, with Weenaas the target of very bitter attacks, 
most of which he had invited, the school passed through a crisis in 
the winter of 1870-71. Thoroughly disheartened by his difficulties 

* Ibid., 75 ff. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 193 


and by the fact that some whom he had counted upon for support 
kept at a distance, Weenaas called his small student body together 
and told them he could bear it no longer. The students arose and 
as one man pledged him their full support, and offered to suffer 
want, if need be,—not a distant prospect, by the way-—for the 
school and the cause of the Conference. Joining hands about the 
table as a pledge of this, they succeeded in consoling their teacher ; 
with God and this sort of young men he could do anything. The 
Conference and Augsburg Seminary had hung in the balance; both 
were saved by the students, prominent among them being Gjermund 
Hoyme, later president of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church. 
In 1871 it was decided to have the school—which was completely 
unattached, as it consisted only of students and Prof. Weenaas—to 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a suitable building was taken into 
use in 1872. In 1873 candidate of theology Sven Oftedal was called 
to Augsburg as professor to assist Weenaas.*7 Sven Oftedal’s 
brother, Lars, was a leader of the Oftedolinger in the Norwegian 
Storthing; both were typical Stavangerings. Weenaas soon found 
this partnership less desirable than anticipated. His dissatisfaction 
on this score, the loss of his beloved wife, and almost incessant con- 
troversies made him tired of America. When he left for Norway 
in 1876 he had the satisfaction of knowing, however, that both Augs- 
burg Seminary and the Conference were on a relatively sound basis. 
Augsburg Seminary now belongs to the Norwegian Lutheran Free 
Church. 

As already indicated,?* the school question in the Norwegian 
Synod is older than the Synod itself. Before 1852 a discussion arose 
as to whether or not the Synod should arrange to establish a pro- 
fessorship at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. The Norwegians 
were not quite convinced that Ohio was the best friend they could 
find in America, hence no definite steps were taken either at the 
Synod meeting in 1852 or in the following years to carry out the 
plan broached by the Ohioans. In spite of the continual agitation 
of the subject in Maanedstidende, its successor, Kirkelig Maaneds- 
tidende, and Emigranten, and the increasingly inadequate pastoral 
supply from Norway, no great enthusiasm was aroused for a pro- 
fessorship at either Columbus, Ohio, Buffalo, New York, or St. Louis, 
Missouri, possibly because all of these were carried on by Germans, 
toward whom the Norwegians, as a result of the Dano-Prussian 
difficulties in Schleswig-Holstein which had fanned Pan-Scandi- 
navianism into vigorous life, were not very friendly. Rev. A. C. 
Preus issued an appeal for four hundred dollars in 1856 to send 
delegates to the three above-mentioned places. He replied to an ob- 
jector, who said that an institution should be built by and for the 
Norwegians, by saying that “the best would certainly be good 
enough.” *® In 1857 the Synod, at its meeting in Little lowa church, 

* J. A. Bergh, op. cit., ® Emigranten, February 8, 1856. 

8 See above, 120. 


194 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Winneshiek County, Iowa, heard the reports of Ottesen and Brandt 
about their visits to St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Columbus, and Buffalo. 
“Missouri” impressed them most. The “Missourians,” they said, 
were “all actuated by the spirit which rules at the university (at St. 
Louis) : a sincere devotion to the Symbols and the doctrine of the 
fathers and a hearty trust in God that therein his Holy Word is 
rightly explained and interpreted. Consequently they manifest a 
self-sacrificing, yes, burning zeal to carry out these old-Lutheran 
principles in their doctrine as well as their church polity.” *° The 
“Missourians” imposed a watchful discipline on their congregations 
in spite of the fact that they quite generally lost such as would not 
submit. The emissaries received a less favorable impression of the 
Joint Ohio institution; about Buffalo they reported its losing fight 
with “Missouri” in regard to the doctrine of the Church, in which 
Buffalo stressed too much the visible Church, while “Missouri” 
stressed the point that the true Church is invisible. While at St. 
Louis, the Synod envoys had taken the opportunity to counteract 
the impression spread abroad by Rev. P. A. Rasmussen, that the 
Synod held views which to “Missouri” must have seemed essentially 
in accord with Buffalo.* 

On the basis of this report, the meeting at Little Iowa declared 
that, though it would rather build an institution of its own, the 
Synod should appoint a professor to St. Louis. Three advantages 
would accrue: (1) Pastors would be procured in the immediate 
future; (2) insight and experience would be gained for the erection 
of their own institution; (3) a connection with a synod tried in 
church conflicts and grounded on the Lutheran foundation would 
increase the Synod’s Christian and churchly insight and power. The 
Synod likewise determined to build an institution of its own, for 
which purpose a fund was immediately to be collected, the interest 
of which should be applied to a professor’s salary, when one was 
called. In case the uncertainty of the present grave political situation 
made it necessary, the Synod would have to establish its own school 
with the means at hand.*? In the course of the discussion John 
Evensen from Iowa subscribed one hundred dollars on condition 
that two hundred and fifty others should do the same. It was also 
decided that, though seven calls had been issued during the last year 
and only one pastor had responded, the Synod would, nevertheless, 
not at this time ordain parochial teachers and others who, though 
well-meaning enough, did not have the proper theological training. 

Almost as important as the establishment of the school was the 
question of the proper man for the presidency of the institution. 
The church council issued a call to Rev. Oluf Aabel to the pro- 
fessorship at St. Louis, with which the presidency of the future in- 
stitution was most intimately connected.#* Although Aabel did not 


“For report see K. Maanedstidende, 1857, 476 ff. 
“See Der Lutheraner, March, 1858, and Kirkelig Maanedstidende, 1858, 6. 
“K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 7. “ Tbid., 1858, 132. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 195 


accept the call, delaying the appointment of a professor a whole year, 
three students (Torger A. Torgerson of Waupaca, Jacob Larsen of 
Pine Lake, and Lars S. Fosse of Norway Grove) ** found their way 
in August, 1858, to Concordia College, St. Louis, Missouri, whither 
many Norwegian students were later to go in search of collegiate and 
theological instruction. In Aabel’s stead, Rev. Laur. Larsen, Rush 
River, Wisconsin, was called to St. Louis. After some hesitation he 
accepted the call, the crying need overcoming his feeling of unfit- 
ness for the great and responsible position.*® 

Laur. Larsen, for forty-one years president of Luther College, 
and for fifty-four years professor there, was born in Christianssand, 
Norway, August 10, 1833, and was given the name Peter Lauren- 
tius.*¢ Like Jonathan Edwards, he was a prodigy. [Entering the 
cathedral school at nine, he received his bachelor of arts degree at 
seventeen, as the undisputed head of the class. In 1850 he matricu- 
lated at Christiania University, and under the inspiring leadership of 
such men as Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari, this brilliant young 
man became so engrossed in his theological studies that his health 
was affected and he was compelled to desist from his work for half a 
year. By 1855 he had received both the master of arts and the can- 
didate of theology degrees, whereupon he became a teacher of lan- 
guages—German, French, and Hebrew—for two years. In 1857 he 
accepted a call to Rush River, Wisconsin, and as a frontier missionary 
covered portions of three states. At this time he is described as 
being “a handsome, black-haired young man of distinguished appear- 
ance, beautiful figure, erect bearing, and elastic movements.” He 
has been designated as “the foremost educator among the Scandi- 
navians,”’ “the Nestor of our schoolmen,” and “the Grand Old Man 
of Luther College.” Devotion to duty, scrupulous stewardship of 
his time and energies, frugality and economy, a keen sense of jus- 
tice, absolute surrender to objective truth, consistent and unswerving 
devotion to principle, hatred of humbug and pretense, simplicity, 
and system—these are some of the sterling qualities ascribed to this 
man by one who knew him quite well.47 On the other hand, perhaps 
he was too objective to become a man of the people, too much out of 
touch with the life about him to see the practical results of a rigid 
application of valid objective principles, and so unswerving even in 
detail that the uninstructed failed to appreciate him at times. Like 
one who clearly saw the way ahead, he had little patience with the 

“Tbid., 1858, 176. Jacob Danielsen Ballestad, in a letter dated November 
13, 1858, gave a list of kind Christian friends who had made it possible for 
him to go to St. Louis. (See K. Maanedstidende, 1858, 192). T. A. Torger- 


son later became the president of the Iowa District of the Norwegian Synod. 

* K. Maanedstidende, 1850, 80. ; 

“ Biographies of this esteemed educator are found in practically any his- 
tory of the Norwegians or of Luther College. Separate biographies are found 
in Who’s Who; Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester 1 Amerika; and Hon. L. S. 
Swensen, “Prof. Dr. Laur. Larsen, De Norsk-Amerikanske Skolemands Nes- 
tor,” in Symra, 1909, I90. 

“ Hon. L. S. Swenson, op. cit., Symra, 1909, 190-195. 


196 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


doubting and timid opportunists who swerved hither and yon to get 
a fair breeze into their sails. 

Such were some of the potential qualities of the young man 
selected to head the Norwegian Luther College when it should be 
built. An ardent home missionary, a zealous worker for the exten- 
sion of the church, even crowding into his busy routine the care of 
the Decorah congregation for longer or shorter periods, an editor of 
Kirketidende, an ardent supporter of foreign missions, particularly 
in Africa—this man proved to be not only a great schoolman but a 
great missionary and friend of missions, and, withal, a prominent 
editor. All the activities of the church thus had a warm supporter 
in Prof. Larsen. 

In fairness to those who sincerely disagreed with some of Lar- 
sen’s early acts and ideas, it must be said that some of the above 
catalogue of virtues apply more properly to him in his later years. 
Prof. Larsen had the good fortune of living an unusually long time, 
and through the mellowing influence of age, the riper fruits of his 
labors were of a better quality than the early windfalls. In fact, 
Larsen, by virtue of his prominent position, was exposed to many 
fierce winds, and since his unbending frame would rather break than 
yield even in somewhat unimportant matters, it was natural that he 
should not always come unscathed out of these storms. There were 
undoubtedly also dead limbs of prejudice and preconceived ideas 
that needed to be swept away by the winds of controversy. At any 
rate, he did not loom so big in the eyes of his early contemporaries, 
who showed no hesitancy in opposing him, thus making him a ver- 
itable storm center. | 

Laur. Larsen entered upon his duties at St. Louis in 1859, on 
October 14—a date that later became the foundation day of Luther 
College and of most of its daughter schools. At St. Louis, Larsen 
came into intimate contact with Prof. (later Dr.) Carl Ferdinand 
Wilhelm Walther (b. 1811, d. 1887), the peerless leader of the 
“Missouri” Synod, also known as “the Luther among the Germans 
in America.” This great leader was originally of a pietistic turn of 
mind, but through a thorough study of Luther, he had not only ac- 
quired an unmatched knowledge of Lutheran doctrine, but had also 
imbibed Luther’s spirit to a marvelous degree. As a result, he com- 
bined profound learning and invincible dialectical skill with the most 
childlike faith. The pious qualities of this well-proportioned theo- 
logian attracted the Haugean, Rev. P. A. Rasmussen, as well as 
the pastors of the Norwegian Synod. His great scholarship and un- 
tainted orthodoxy naturally also appealed to such men as Rev. H. A. 
Preus, Prof. Laur. Larsen, Rev. V. Koren and others of the Nor- 
wegian university group in the Synod. 

The reflex influence of this man upon the Norwegian Synod pas- 
tors, therefore, was very great. Larsen, first of all, and secondly, 
the (Christiania) “university” pastors became the imperfect and 
partial bearers of the shaping influence of Dr. Walther. Not only 


DIVERGEN DISYNODIGAL ACTIVITIES 197 


was the Royal Frederik University in Christiania patterned after 
the German type of university, but at that time the German spirit 
was influential at Christiania as well as at quite a number of other 
institutions of learning. Being well versed in German language and 
lore, the pastors, when they founded their own “university” in 
America, could not, of course, think of any other form than the Ger- 
man “gymnasium.” 

One result of the close connection with “Missouri” was that the 
Norwegian Synod was, even now, drifting away from the Church 
of Norway. As related above, Prof. Larsen was sent to Norway in 
1860 and, on the whole, was not altogether optimistic as to what 
could be expected from the Church there. Members of the Mother 
Church had heard about the church controversies in America, and 
though they seemed to think that the Synod was right in its attitude 
toward Augustana, they quite generally sympathized with Rasmussen 
rather than the Synod in the quarrel between these two.** In turn, 
Larsen found the Norwegian Church too latitudinarian. Grundt- 
vigianism had lost its hold at the university, but many of the edu- 
cational leaders, notably O. Vig, were Grundtvigian. At the other 
extreme were the “awakened,” who are “very pietistic and show this 
not only by their false conception of ‘laymen’s activity,’ but also 
in an anxious fear lest the Gospel be taken in vain.” Hardly ever 
do they preach a full Gospel of the salvation of the world, he says, 
but they preach salvation conditioned by conversion. “Just as many 
now wish to bring to naught the commandment of love by all kinds 
of human inventions, and just as the Grundtvigian, pietistic, and 
chiliastic errors now seek to make headway against the simple Lu- 
theran-Christian truth which we confess, so it is entirely possible that 
all these aberrations will gain such power in the Norwegian Church 
that hope of help from them in the future may be in vain.’ *® He 
found no one in Norway, he said, who could compare to the “learned 
and lovable” Prof. Walther—not even Johnson and Caspari. Nor did 
either Norwegian Grundtvigianism or Norwegian pietism satisfy, 
as he felt that the leaders thereof did not so zealously study Luther 
and the Lutheran Symbols. On the other hand, in America, he said, 
we were referred to these old, reliable sources, and it did not take 
long to realize that here is the truth. For that reason, we have the 
courage to stand up against any adversary, whoever he may be.°*° 

Not long after his return to St. Louis in January, 1861, Prof. 
Larsen was again interrupted in his labors. Even before Lincoln’s 
inauguration, political feeling in Missouri ran so high that riots were 
frequent.°* In April, 1861, St. Louis finally became such an unsafe 
place to live in that Concordia College was closed, and Larsen and the 


*“K. Maandestidende, 1861, 67 ff. See above, 181, for Larsen’s trip to 
Norway. 


“ K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 77. “J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 191. 


“See any newspaper from that time. Emigranten, 1861, describes many 
riots in which civilians and soldiers lost their lives. 


198 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Norwegian students came north. The students brought with them 
disquieting reports about the secessionistic attitude of the faculty at 
St, Louis,°? and it was not long before Prof. Larsen found himself 
in the midst of a debate about slavery and secession, in which Prof. 
Larsen’s cold reasoning made little headway against excited appeals 
to an inflamed public opinion. We shall leave to future considera- 
tion the effects on the Norwegian Lutherans by the issues of slavery 
and secession that shattered nearly every other religious body in 
America and divided the bodies at least into Northern and Southern 
groups. Once raised, the issue became irrepressible. A certain 
contributor to Emigranten, who signed himself “X”’ (which the type- 
setter made into a tell-tale “H”), challenged Prof. Larsen to give 
the views of the St. Louis faculty on the points of slavery and 
secession, and added that until these points were satisfactorily cleared 
up, all subscriptions to the “university fund” ought to cease. The 
Synod should without delay, he says, sever its connection with 
“Missouri”; under no circumstances should Norwegian students be 
exposed to the secessionistic influences, which, he was quite certain 
from Prof. Larsen’s silence, were present at the St. Louis school.** 

Inflamed by this and other appeals to passion, the delegates came 
to the Synod meeting at Luther Valley, Wisconsin, June 26 to July 
3, 1861, in a mood to do everything for their own “university” but 
nothing for an institution down south.°* The meeting opened as 
usual with the president’s report, whereupon Rev. C. L. Clausen and 
Rev. H. P. Duborg applied for membership in the Synod and were 
accepted.5> Prof. Laur. Larsen read a “Missouri’’-made paper on 
Absolution which, as we shall see, provoked a discussion that lasted 
for forty years. Although two major controversies were to center 
about Prof. Larsen, the president of the “university,” still the “uni- 
versity” question became the rallying point—yes, possibly the salva- 
tion—of the Norwegian Synod at this time. 

Reading the signs of the times, and encouraged by the resolution 
of 1859 that work be begun on the “university” at once,°® the “uni- 
versity” committee, consisting of Prof. Larsen, Revs. V. Koren and 
H. A. Preus, and Messrs. Olsnaes, Myhra, Aadnesen, Aaker, and 
Aaby, had, through Koren, secured a thirty-two acre tract of land at 
Decorah, lowa, for fifteen hundred dollars. In explanation of their 
action they said that Decorah was surrounded by the Synod’s most 
powerful congregation, materials for buildings could easily be pro- 


° Emigranten, May 4, 1861. 

* Tbid., June 1, 1861. 

“By a vote of 47 against, 29 for, and three not voting, they rejected a 
minority resolution drawn up by the clerical members of the “university” 
committee that, in case quiet be restored at St. Louis, the students be sent 
there again. 

* Report of this important meeting in K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 225 ff. 

© The resolution of 1859 reads: “The Synod will exert itself to erect its 
is Norwegian university within three years.” (K. Maanedstidende, 1859, 
187. . 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 199 


cured here, it was centrally located, easily reached, and healthful. 
The committee recommended that work on the erection of a building 
be prosecuted with all possible vigor, and that building and sub- 
scription committees be named. The committee recommended that 
Rev. F. A. Schmidt, a “Missouri” pastor at Baltimore, Maryland, 
be elected as a second professor at the institution, Prof. Larsen being 
already considered the president of the school. In case the Synod 
would accept the proffer of the use of the parsonage at Halfway 
Creek, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Prof. Larsen offered to give up 
half of his stipulated salary of one thousand dollars. The committee 
liked the spirit of this offer, but would not hear of Larsen having less 
than six hundred dollars, plus house and transportation. Except for 
a few remarks on the size of the tract purchased at Decorah, this re- 
port was accepted without appreciable debate. It was inevitabie that 
this discussion should be interspersed with a discussion of the slavery 
question, but we shall come to that presently. 

At Halfway Creek, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, the “univer- 
sity,” appropriately named Luther College, opened its doors on Oc- 
tober 14, 1861, with two professors—Larsen and Schmidt—and five 
students.5? In 1862 the institution was moved to Decorah, where 
students and faculty were housed in what is now the St. Cloud Hotel, 
until buildings could be erected on the college site. Harassed by in- 
ternal church strife and a political upheaval beggaringe description, 
the brave pioneers—in 1861 seventeen pastors and sixty-nine con- 
gregations—carried to a successful close a work that tested their 
faith at every turn. In times of war, when men were fighting, prices 
soaring, and markets badly unbalanced, people were called upon to 
sacrifice as never before. Fired by an unbounded enthusiasm for this 
religious and cultural ideal—their “university’—the Norwegians, 
who in Norway had been accustomed to sit idly by while the State 
carried on church projects like this, now came forward and did much 
more than ever was expected of them. Wheat offerings were ac- 
cepted at first when money could not otherwise be procured; later 
cattle offerings, hog offerings, food offerings—almost any kind of 
offering that had any money value—were taken. People literally took 
of their own bread—which in the troublous times was none too plen- 
tiful for any of them—and gave it for Luther College. Every stone 
in the “Old Main” was hallowed by the prayers and sacrifices of 
some one; crystallized in its wood and stone were the hopes and 
aspirations of these sturdy men and women. Luther College can 
therefore very properly be called the cathedral of the Norwegians, 
not only because its “Old Main” is unmatched in its stately beauty, 
but because it represented, as nothing before or since, the common 
rallying point of nearly all the Norwegian Lutherans in America. 
Christian education had finally become a popular cause, just as 


Of the very extensive literature on Luther College, I shall mention only 


G. Bothne, Det Norske Luther College, 1897, and Luther College Through 
Sixty Years, by Luther College Faculty, 1922. 


200 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


missions had become a popular cause twenty or thirty-five years 
earlier. 

In 1865 two of the proposed three sections of the building were 
completed. The center section was fifty-two feet long and the north 
section was forty-four feet ; the south section, when completed, would 
likewise be forty-four feet long. With its three main stories, a full 
attic story, and a basement, the building, now known as the “Old 
Main,’ was indeed imposing. Instead of an estimated cost of twen- 
ty-eight thousand dollars, the rise in the cost of materials and other 
causes brought the total cost of the building up to seventy-five thou- 
sand dollars, which, added to twelve thousand dollars in expenses 
otherwise, made a large sum to raise. Sixty thousand of this had 
been raised by the time of dedication, which took place October 14, 
1865.°° This event brought out a vast crowd of six thousand people 
—in ox wagon, afoot, by boat, by rail—from great distances, in days 
when travel was slow and the total Norwegian population was not 
very great. With joy and exultation they came, and the orators of the 
day broke into rhapsodies: “At last—yes, at last! Is what we see 
real or is it only a phantom which will disappear when the lights 
have been burnt down? No, it is real. How could that for which 
we toiled and prayed so many years be only a vision? No, it is 
real, it is the fruit of the best there is in us. Thanks be to God 
roreveniiny, 

Students were already finding their way to what is now a vener- 
able seat of learning among the Norwegians. In 1863-64 there were 
forty-nine students, in 1864-65, fifty-eight ; in 1868 the first class of 
eight was graduated—among them Hans Gerhard Stub, D.D., Litt. 
D., L.L.D., professor of theology for forty-five years, president of 
the Norwegian Synod for six years (1911-17), and president of the 
Norwegian Lutheran Church in America for eight years (1917-25). 
In 1863, L. Siewers was called as the third professor at Luther Col- 
lege, and, in 1865, Rev. Nils Brandt became the fourth professor. 
Up to 1925 this school had furnished the Norwegian Lutheran Church 
of America with 575 pastors. | 

Although the Synod had preferred to build a college of its own, 
its theological students were sent to St. Louis until it could build 
its own theological seminary.®® The first fruit of the connection with 
“Missouri” was the ordination in 1862 of O. J. Hjort, who had re- 
ceived some of his theological training at St. Louis. The first class 


"J. A. Ottesen, Kort Uddrag af Den Norske Synodes Historie (1893), 
24-25. 

* Quoted by W. Sihler in Luther College Through Sixty Years, 22. 

“ E. Ellefsen in Emigranten, December 21, 1861, asks if the Synod had not 
decided to sever its connections with “Missouri” immediately; why, then, 
does Larsen continue to send students to St. Louis against the expressed 
wishes of the Synod? Larsen replied that they have not been sent; the col- 
lege at St. Louis had been moved to Fort Wayne, and the theological de- 
partment at Fort Wayne had been moved to St. Louis, where henceforth the 
theological seminary is to be located. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 201 


to receive its full theological education there was ordained in 1863. 
These were: A. Mikkelsen, Th. Johnson, O. J. E. Hagestad and 
J. Krohn. With the ordination of five candidates and the return of 
Rev. H. A. Stub in 1865, the Synod had thirty-two pastors, most 
of whom were present at the dedication of Luther College. The 
building of Luther College overshadowed the issues raised by its 
president in 1861, although these issues were very bitterly discussed 
during all this time. 


Ole Bad Se DRE, Dy 
DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 


Iv. SLAVERY AND SCHISM 


As indicated above, the students brought with them from St. 
Louis the impression that the “Missouri” faculty—the leader of 
which was the mighty Walther—was secessionistic and pro-slavery. 
Little dreaming what far-reaching results it would have, the editor 
of Emigranten very respectfully asked Prof. Larsen to give authen- 
tic information on this point. The Norwegians, he contended, had 
a right to know what sort of views the teachers of their future pas- 
tors held on the very vital question of obedience to constituted au- 
thority.1. When Prof. Larsen did not answer, another writer “X”’ 
(“H”’)? asserted that Larsen’s silence was an admission that the St. 
Louis faculty was guilty of the disloyalty with which they were 
charged. The South, “X” (“H’’) asserted, justified itself by two 
main arguments: 

To olavery 4S \notisin, 

2. To oppose the execution of the laws of the United States in 
the Slave States is not sin. 

In arguments drawn partly from the spirit of the Scriptures, 
partly from reason, and largely from the philosophy of the day, the 
writer demolished to his absolute satisfaction both propositions, and, 
moreover, denounced roundly anyone who could hold such views.’ 

Absorbed as he was in his arduous studies and educational duties, 
Prof, Larsen was rather annoyed that a newspaper editor and an- 
other demagogue, as he was inclined to regard “X” (“H”), should 
involve him in such secular issues as these. Although it really was 
“nobody’s business” what the personal views of the St. Louis pro- 
fessors were on political questions, he would, for the benefit of ten- 
der consciences, answer “X” (“H’’) anyway.‘ 

In reply to the question whether or not slavery is sin, he said 
that it is not sin. 


Of the many passages which prove that slavery is not sin, I can 
in a hurry select only a few from a large number. In Gen. xvii. 12 
one sees that Abraham bought slaves; these God shows grace by 
receiving them into His covenant through circumcision. This is 


*Emigranten, May 4, 1861. 

* The “X” was made into a tell-tale “H” by the typesetter. 
> Emigranten, June 1, 1861. 

*Ibid., June 15, 1861. 


202 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 203 


confirmed by Ex. xii. 43-45. In Ex. xx. 17 we find the Tenth Com- 
mandment, in which it is forbidden to covet our neighbor’s man- 
servant and maid-servant. That male and female slaves are hereby 
meant is proved by the fact that this word, which in our Bible is 
translated as slave, man-servant and maid-servant, but which in the 
original text is the same, is used in Gal. iii..28 and other places as the 
opposite of free. Where a hired servant is meant, another word is 
used, as for instance, in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. 
In Ex. xxi. 1 ff. are found other precepts regarding the slave’s posi- 
tion, which the reader himself can look up, and in verse 32 a slave’s 
value is placed at thirty pieces of silver. In Lev. xxv. 44 ff. the pur- 
chase of slaves who are to serve in the temple is sanctioned. Although 
the slavery which the apostles found among the heathen Romans 
and Greeks to whom they proclaimed the Gospel was far more 
inhuman than the old Jewish and the present American systems, 
nevertheless we find in the New Testament the strongest admoni- 
tions to the slaves regarding their duty to obey and honor their 
masters “as Christ,’ yea, “consider them worthy of every honor,” 
while the slave owners never are commanded to set them free, but 
only to treat them mildly (cf. I Cor. vii. 20-23; Eph. vi. 5-9; Col. 
1ii, 22, iv. 1; I Tim. vi. 1-10; Tit. it. 9-15; 1 Pet. ii. 18-25). Neither 
time nor space permits me to explain these passages more in detail, 
but the observant Bible student will himself understand them. Let 
him read with especial care I Tim. vi. and throughout let him bear in 
mind that it is an undisputed fact that the words servant and man- 
servant are the same as slave and bond-servant. 


In regard to one’s duty to obey the government, Prof. Larsen 
agreed that every soul should be subject unto the higher powers 
(Rom. xiii. 1) in everything that is not contrary to God’s Word. But 
a subject in a seceded state might not so readily know which govern- 
ment to obey, the federal or the state. As for himself, Prof. Larsen 
said that if the governor of Wisconsin commanded him to take up 
arms against the South, he would do so. Whether or not a state has 
the right to secede, he did not know, as he was not a legal expert, 
nor was he sufficiently acquainted with his new Fatherland’s consti- 
tution, laws, and history to render an opinion in this matter. As the 
Synod undoubtedly expected of him, he had put all his time and 
strength into the exercise of his calling as a professor. For the good of - 
such agitators as “X” (“H”), Prof. Larsen gave a resumé of an arti- 
cle in Der Lutheraner by the venerable Rev. Th. J. Brohm, in which 
the Christian’s relations to politics are summed up under ten heads. 

Prof. Larsen’s answers were by no means satisfactory at a time 
when regiments were being formed and sabers were rattling. The 
editor of Emigranten replied ® that Larsen’s discussion of whether 
or not slavery is sin was irrelevant, as this was no longer a question 
for discussion, nor was the Republican party—to which practically all 
Norwegians at that time belonged—founded on the proposition that 
slavery as an abstract idea is sin. More to the point in the editor’s 


5 Idem. 


204 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


mind was Larsen’s reply that all rebellion against constituted author- 
ity is sin, but he and the Concordia professors speak so vaguely about 
“constituted authority” that they practically exonerate the secession- 
ists against whom the North was taking up arms for the preserva- 
tion of the Union. The editor sarcastically begged the professor’s 
pardon for being unable to share his broad objective views of the 
matter. Although Larsen failed to stamp secession as sin, this caused 
only a temporary flurry, as in compensation he made statements that 
were decidedly patriotic.® 

Not so with the slavery question, however. On this point there 
were no extenuating statements to offset the irritating effect of his 
bald statement that “slavery is not sin.” Since it was felt that the 
young’ Norwegian professor had imbibed these views at St. Louis, 
it was unavoidable that the question should come up at the Synod 
meeting in 1861 in connection with the “university” project. In the 
course of the discussion of this point, Prof. Larsen was again called 
upon to show from the Scriptures that “slavery is not sin.” Basing 
his remarks on I Tim, vi. I, 2, he showed that the Scriptures regard 
the institution as a social organism under which the duties of both 
master and slave are prescribed. Christianity made slave and master 
brethren, hence each should respect the other. It did not follow, 
however, that the master was compelled to free his slave in order 
to remain a Christian. If slavery be sin, then why did not the Bible 
demand its abolition, rather than give rules governing the principals 
—master and slave—of the institution? In the Old Testament, 
slavery was even commanded (Ex. xxi. 1-7). The commands that a 
Hebrew slave be freed every seventh year do not apply to present- 
fa slavery, as these statutes pertained to the external polity of the 

ews. 

Delegate Erik Ellefsen from Big Canoe, also known as “the king 
of Big Canoe,” *® contradicted Prof. Larsen, saying that I Tim. 
vi. I, 2 did admonish slaves to be patient, but that nevertheless, it 
was the master’s duty to free the slaves. Personal liberty was not 
only the highest good, but it was a right that no man can take from 
another. Not only that, but it was every man’s duty to preserve this 
aaa for others also, hence a Christian master must liberate his 
slave.* 


*The church council admitted—seven years later, however,— that Prof. 
Larsen had made an unhappy display of modesty in regard to his knowledge 
of his country’s constitution, laws, and history, as his statements were re- 
garded as being evasive by the excited masses, who were inclined to be a 
little cocksure. See Church Council of the Synod, Historisk Fremstilling af 
den Strid, som 1 Aarene 1861 til 1868 indenfor den norske Synode i Amerika 
har varet fort i Anledning af Skriftens Lare om Slaveri, 5. 

"Larsen was only twenty-seven and a half years old at this time. 

°K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 238. 

\nderson, Autobiography, 72. The point in the title is that he 
is a local “king” of a district or bygd who ruled at home and tolerated no 
outside interference. 


* K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 259. 


DIVERGEN Tis VNOBICAI ACTIVITIES 205 


From the other side, it was remarked that freedom was the high- 
est temporal good, but one can and must do without it if God so de- 
crees. We have no rights by nature; “we brought nothing into this 
world,’ “and having food and raiment let us therewith be content” 
(I Tim. vi. 7, 8). By nature we are slaves to sin, and as punish- 
ment we deserve every distress and misery in time and eternity. 
Consequently we can demand nothing as a right, but we must thank 
God for what He gives. The status into which God placed us is His 
good and gracious gift to us; if, in His wisdom, He placed us in a 
humble, wretched position, He, by His loving kindness, intended to 
bring us into Christian freedom in faith by becoming the freedmen 
of Jesus Christ, hence God’s bond-servants. For this purpose, it 
makes no difference whether we, in our external status, are free or 
slave, rich or poor, of high or low estate. “Let every man abide in 
the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a 
servant? care not for it’ (your estate as a doulos, or bond-servant, 
does not determine your Christian life) ; “but if thou mayest be made 
free, use it rather” (I Cor. vii. 20, 21). Freedom, like money, is 
a good, which, if God gives it us, well; if not, well. Neither in 
I Tim. vi nor any other place does the Bible teach that a Christian 
must free his slaves. Not even the Golden Rule requires this; else 
must the employer divide his substance with the employee, the rich 
with the poor. This rule does not make our neighbor our equal, 
but we should put ourselves into his place and station in life and do 
to him as we should expect he would do to us in case we were in his 
place. Even though slavery is not sin in itself, nevertheless it is 
conceded that it is an evil in itself, from which many fearful sins 
and abominations easily spring, and actually do spring. It is ab- 
solutely sin in itself for a master to sell a slave away from his wife, 
as this is to put asunder what God hath joined together. Slavery 
is a result of sin, but not a sin in itself. 

Several of the pastors excused the laymen for not being able to 
grasp this at'once. Others desired to consider slavery as it exists 
in real life, but to this it was replied that this was a historical or po- 
litical question which required knowledge of the laws governing these 
things in each state. But the specific abuses connected with slavery 
could be judged by the Ten Commandments. The Letter to Phile- 
mon, insofar as it can be interpreted, does not prove that Paul wanted 
Philemon to free Onesimus. 

Rev. J. Fjeld felt that slavery in itself is sin, even though it was 
permitted by Paul and the apostles. Rev. B. J. Muus did not think it 
was sin in itself to keep slaves, but Christianity would lead to its 
abolition. Others spoke in the same tenor. Rev. C. L. Clausen de- 
clared “that slavery according to God’s Word is not sin in itself, but 
it is equally clear from God’s Word, that it is one of the very greatest 
of temporal ills, which every Christian in love must desire to have 
abolisiftd.”’ Erik Ellefsen still maintained that slavery was sin, and 
could not conceive of any other point of view. I. Ingebritsen could 


206 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


likewise not feel satisfied on this point, but felt that slavery must be 
sin. 

Although the discussion between Prof. Larsen and the contribu- 
tors to Emigranten had involved slavery in its most general terms, 
under which American slavery was also included, we notice that the 
discussion had now been elevated from the dangerous plane of red- 
hot human passion to the cooler atmosphere of slavery in itself. Con- 
crete slavery was a “historical or political question” requiring much 
knowledge to discuss it in all its ramifications. Of course, this “ob- 
jective and ideal slavery” was not the kind of slavery that the lay- 
men were interested in; what they wanted to know was where Prof. 
Larsen and the pastors stood on concrete, American slavery as it 
exists, here and now. To them, this other was an idle discussion 
in which the professors and pastors might take pleasure, but it would 
never bring them anywhere. Whether or not it was true, as the pas- 
tors maintained, that the question of concrete slavery was undebat- 
able because too complex and broad, the objective view did have the 
added advantage that it removed the question from the dangerous 
ground on which Prof. Larsen had begun the discussion. 

Some pronouncement was expected, seeing the delegates were 
quite restive on account of what they had heard—or thought they had 
heard. Rev. J. A. Ottesen and Rev. H. A. Preus made representa- 
tions to their fellow-pastors that nothing short of a unanimous 
declaration by the pastors would relieve the tension.t Serious dif- 
ferences of opinion appeared among the pastors as soon as an at- 
tempt was made to formulate their views. In order to satisfy Lar- 
sen, on the one hand, and Clausen, on the other, the statement could 
neither be too specific nor too general. That slavery in itself was 
not sin, both Clausen and Larsen at this time acknowledged, and, in 
order to make no mistake on that point, the committee that drafted 
the resolutions put the pivotal words im itself into both the positive 
and negative statements, thereby making the document appear self- 
contradictory.’* The pastors, in their united strength, came before 
the convention and presented a resolution, which, because it was 
signed by all the pastors, has been called The Pastors’ Resolution. 
It reads as follows: 


Although, according to God’s Word, it is not in and by itself 
sin to own slaves, yet slavery in itself is an evil and a punishment 
from God, and we condemn all the abuses and sins which are con- 
nected with it, just as we, when our official duties demand it, and 
when Christian love and wisdom require it, will work for its 
abolition.” 


%C, L. Clausen, Gjenmale, 14 ff., describes these scenes behind the cur- 
tains. The full title of Clausen’s book is: Gjenmdale mod Kirkeraadet for 
den Norske Synode i Anledning af dets Skrift kaldet “Historisk Fremstil- 
ling.” etc. (Chicago, 1869.) 

4K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 261, and Clausen, Gjenmédle, 17. 

* Tbhid., 1861, 261. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 207 


_It soon appeared, however, that the lay members were not suf- 
ficiently impressed by this document to give it a substantial major- 
ity. ‘l’'wenty-eight voted for the resolution, ten against, and twenty- 
eight refused to vote—a disquieting vote indeed. The laymen had 
read in their newspapers that slavery is sin, and Erik Ellefsen, for 
one, openly declared that the pastors were trying to “pull the wool 
over the eyes” of the lay members.1* In their turn the lay members 
introduced a counter resolution, in which slavery was branded as 
sin: 


Slavery considered as an institution can only exist by definite 
law, and since the laws on which it is based are in direct conflict 
with God’s Word and Christian love, it is sin; and since slavery in 
the United States has been one of this country’s greatest evils both 
for Church and State, we regard it to be our duty by legal means as 
Christians and good citizens to do everything in our power to 
alleviate, diminish, and, if possible, abolish slavery, when our coun- 
try’s best interests and Christian love demand this of us.” 


Two questions are answered in these declarations:*® 1. Is 
slavery in itself sin? 2. Is it to be regarded as desirable, as good? 
To the first, the pastors answer that it is not sin, the laymen that it 
is; to the second, both pastors and laymen give a negative answer, 
although the laymen make no distinction between sim and evil; 
slavery should, to their mind, be alleviated and abolished because it 
was sin. Both resolutions call for the abolition of slavery when their 
respective duties as pastors or as citizens demand it. If the practi- 
cal question had been uppermost in the minds of the lay members— 
and of Clausen who soon joined them—there would have been no 
need for further discussion as there was no clash on the practical 
point of abolition. 

But “the king of Big Canoe’’ had blood in his eye and wanted to 
try his strength against the pastors. Both the Augustanans and Eiel- 
sen’s church were definitely committed to abolition, and in this they 
had the sympathy of the Norwegians in general, who centuries ago 
abolished it from their domains.17 To the Norwegians, then, who 
had an inherited aversion to slavery and were, withal, plain-spoken 
folk, the distinction between slavery as a sin and slavery as an evil 
seemed trifling and irrelevant, even though the pastors hastened to 
add that it ought to be abolished. Some also thought that this was an 
ill-concealed attempt to defend American slavery.1® Others, again, 
though loyal to the Synod, were beginning to feel that the pastors 


“ Emigranten, December 14, 1861. Ellefsen used the expression “stikke 
blaar i Ginene paa lagmandene.” 

* Text in K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 262. 

** Emigranten, 1862. Koren, “Gjenmale” in Samlede Skrifter, III, 33. 

* Norwegians refused to settle in Missouri because it was a slave state. 
Ole Rynning, as early as 1837, denounced slavery as infamous. (“True Ac- 
count,” in Minnesota History Bulietin, November, 1917, 257.) 


~ 


*C. L. Clausen, op. ctt., 19. 


208 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


were attempting to exert pressure as an office-holding aristocracy in 
America, seeing practically every one of them had belonged to the 
office-holding, or “conditioned,” class in Norway.*® All that was 
lacking was a leader of the people who could marshal all these forces 
in a concerted drive against the pastors, who were admittedly at a 
popular disadvantage. 

Such a leader was Rev. C. L. Clausen. Although ordained, he 
had never been able to regard himself as being fully on a par with 
the more aristocratic Christiania university men.”° These men reor- 
ganized the Norwegian Synod in 1853 over Clausen’s head, where- 
upon Clausen seems for the time being to have lost interest in that 
body. He had resigned from his congregation at Luther Valley in 
1851, chiefly because his health was poor. But he carried on sev- 
eral independent projects. He took several mission trips into eastern 
Minnesota, headed a colonization project at St. Ansgar, Iowa, and 
served as pastor for a call extending over a stretch two hundred 
miles long and fifty miles wide in southern Minnesota and northern 
Iowa. During this time he also sought public office, being elected for 
one term to the Iowa legislature in 1856, and serving as commis- 
sioner of immigration for six years. All this activity no doubt made 
the Synod pastors question the sincerity of his plea of bad health as 
a cause for his retirement from the ministry in the Norwegian Synod, 
especially since he was doing a great deal of pastoral work in an in- 
dependent, extra-synodical way. At any rate, when he applied for 
readmission to the Synod in 1861, the Synod pastors forced him to 
make a very abject confession “that he had sinned in that a few 
years earlier he had resigned from the pastorate.” He also had to 
make other confessions on points of doctrine before he could be re- 
admitted to the Synod,” all of which no doubt rankled in his breast. 

In a time when sharp distinctions were drawn even among Nor- 
wegians on American soil, between the office-holding clergy 
and the laity, Clausen’s sympathies invariably gravitated toward “the 
people.” Torn between his respect for the Synod leaders and his 
broad sympathies for the common man—which made him a man of 
the people—Clausen became a vacillating and at times an almost 
pathetic figure. 


This peculiarity of his character [ie., his responsiveness to popular 
will] and his relationship to the lay people explains the vacillating 
position he took in the course of this struggle. When his fellow- 
pastors took him amongst themselves and step by step advanced the 
arguments on their side, he yielded inch by inch, went over to their 
way of thinking, took his pen and subscribed to their common Reso- 


*R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 5. 

*S. Strand, “Pastor C. L. Clausen,” in Symra, 1913, 215. For the class 
distinctions and its bearing on the education of those outside the “conditioned” 
classes, see Chapter IX. 

3K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 234; also above, 145. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 209 


lution; but when he came home he regretted what he had done, and 
sent the papers the information that he withdrew his signature.” 


That was exactly what Clausen did. When he came home from 
Luther Valley and had had time to think the matter over—and to 
consult with his members—he began to feel that Erik Ellefsen was 
probably right and the Synod pastors wrong.?* After a renewed 
study of the question, he prepared a statement retracting the declara- 
tion he had made at Luther Valley together with the other pastors. 
Sensing the situation, and wishing to keep the dissension among the 
clergy from becoming public property, the Synod pastors took the 
question up at the pastoral conference at Decorah early in November, 
1861. Introducing the topic of slavery, Rev. J. A. Ottesen made 
statements which so exasperated Clausen that he not only was con- 
firmed in his intention to retract his declaration at Luther Valley, but 
also made other statements about liberty and the source of govern- 
mental authority that he had to retract in 1864.74 Ottesen undoubt- 
edly won this debate, as he had won many another, but he failed al- 
together in winning Clausen over to his way of thinking. Before the 
end of the month Clausen sent to Emigranten a statement of his Re- 
traction. In this he defines slavery as “‘a person using other persons 
as his property under the compulsion of the law, and the status of 
these is called slavery, which, as before stated, is declared to be an 
evil in itself.” He goes on to define an evil. “An evil,’ he says, 
“is a condition like poverty, or sickness. ... Since slavery is an 
evil, it is sin to keep men in it, as this is contrary to the law of nature 
and of love. Therefore, it is sin to own slaves.’ Clausen goes on 
to brand The Pastors’ Resolution as mere sophistry and idle chat- 
ter 

In reply, Rev. A. C. Preus defined what was meant by sin in 
itself. “Sin in itself,” he says, “is such an act as is absolutely sin- 
ful whenever, wherever, and however it is performed.” All such 
acts are so clearly branded as sin in the Bible that all dispute and 
uncertainty regarding them are impossible. They consist either of 
doing what God has forbidden, or omitting to do what he has com- 
manded. Slavery does not fall into this category, although we ad- 
mit, he says, that slavery often, possibly at most times, is sin, because 
it takes place in unbelief and godlessness. But it is then sin, not 
because it is sin in itself, but because it is carried on in unbelief and 
godlessness. On the other hand, slavery is an evil, a punishment 
from God as a consequence of sin, just as all evils are the conse- 
quences of sin and a punishment from God. Ignorance, poverty, 
sickness, death, war are evils and the consequences of sin, but not 


™” Characterization by his son-in-law, Prof. Svein Strand, in article, “Pas- 
tor C. L. Clausen,” in Symra, 1913, 216. 

*C. L. Clausen, op. ctt!; 20. 

* Ibid., 21, and Church Council, op. cit., 21. 

” Clausen’s Retraction is found in Emigranten, November 30, 1861. 


210 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


sin in themselves. Treating the subject patriotically, he said that 
the Constitution of the United States protected slavery; if slavery be 
sin, then every citizen of the United States has taken an oath to 
serve sin, as he has sworn to uphold the Constitution. If Clausen 
denounces this as sophistry, he does not know the history of slavery, 
nor the fact that the Christian Church did not for seventeen hundred 
years denounce slavery as sin. Rev. C. L. Clausen’s doctrine is a 
modern doctrine hatched in the nest of rationalism, which, again, is 
the offspring of freethinking.2® Our Resolution is not pro-slavery, 
but anti-slavery.?? 

Once this question had come up for public debate, there was no 
end to the number of contributions from all quarters. None of the 
Synod pastors joined Clausen, but he was ably assisted by Erik Ellef- 
sen, William Winslow, and other laymen who were interested in the 
fight for various reasons. In Kuirkelig Maanedstidende, the editors, 
Rev. H. A. Preus and Rev. J. A. Ottesen, kept up a sharp fire for a 
time, asserting their views with a great show of authority. Much 
more damaging to Clausen in view of the temper of the people was 
Rev. V. Koren’s Gjenmale, which was a genteel but very strong re- 
buttal of Clausen’s Retraction.2® Rev. B. J. Muus was incisive but 
sympathetic; hence, when it came to a personal conference with . 
Clausen, Clausen welcomed Muus and Duborg as the conferees. 
Quite early in the struggle the question was referred by the Synod 
leaders to the theological faculty at Christiania, but when the faculty 
did not agree with the Synod on all points, Profs. Larsen and F. A. 
Schmidt of Decorah entered into a controversy with the Christiania 
faculty. From all sides—except from ‘‘Missouri’—the Synod pas- 
tors were attacked, even rank outsiders, who had heard that the pas- 
tors were “disloyal,” taking a menacing attitude at times.2® But 
through it all, the other Synod pastors not only held their ground, 
but little by little the distinction between slavery as a sin and slavery 
as an evil gained ground among the people. In proportion as this 
took place, the opposition weakened, and the public discussions died 
down for several years. 

But 1f the public discussion lagged, private discussions in con- 
ferences and otherwise did not. Efforts were made to prevent a 
discussion of the subject in the conventions of the Synod until after 
the Civil War, when men should have regained their composure. 
In an attempt to force public discussion, Clausen insisted on having 
a resolution put into the minutes at the Synod meeting at Holden, 
Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1862. Clausen seems to have been 
clear on only one point, and that was that he did not agree with the 
pastors. For when he began to formulate his resolution, which pur- 


* The “freethinkers” were particularly odious to the Norwegians at that 
time. 

* A.C. Preus’s reply is found in Emigranten, December 14, 1861. 

* Reprinted from Emigranten in Koren, Samlede Skrifter, III, 5-44. 

” R. B. Anderson, op. cit., 79. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 211 


ported to be in opposition to The Pastors’ Resolution, the other 
Synod pastors protested that they agreed absolutely with the resolu- 
tion as he had formulated it; if Clausen intended to give the impres- 
sion that the other pastors held views opposite to those stated in his 
resolution, he grossly misrepresented their views, they said.- In 
order to make the difference plain to all, Clausen was prevailed upon 
to add that slavery ss sinful, whereupon his resolution was recorded 
by the secretary. We shall underscore the words that were added 
at the insistent demands of the other pastors in order to enable the 
reader to distinguish between the ideas that Clausen actually thought 
he held, and those the other pastors thought he must hold if he 
radically differed from them. ‘The resolution reads: 


Whereas, the ownership of slaves is nowhere in the New Testa- 
ment expressly permitted, much less commanded, but on the con- 
trary, since it militates against the spirit and essence of Christianity 
as well as against natural rights and fairness to keep other human 
beings as slaves (except as punishment for crime) and consequently 
ts sin; and 

Whereas, experience also shows that slavery usually occasions 
and is connected with all sorts of open and vile sins; 

Therefore, it is the duty of Christian citizens wherever slavery 
exists, by the use of Christian and legal means, to work for its 
alleviation, restriction, and abolition.” 


Clausen’s efforts to force a public discussion in the convention 
of the Synod met with little success at this time. Obviously if the 
question were taken up at the Synod conventions, Ellefsen and other 
lay friends would help Clausen to swing the lay delegates into his 
column, and thus outvote the pastors. Clausen, however, complains 
that “the pastors, in the meantime, were not ready to have the mat- 
ter discussed at the Synod meetings, but were able adroitly to man- 
age it so that, after they had spoken sufficiently on the subject to 
work up the lay delegates, they took a vote, and, of course, it was 
voted not to discuss the matter.” ** Although Clausen was per- 
mitted to place his resolution in the minutes, and although some dis- 
cussion ensued as to the wording of this resolution, the broad ques- 
tion of slavery was left undiscussed “until the doctrine itself could 
be taken up for discussion.”*? 

Another blow to Clausen’s cause was the resignation at the 
Holden meeting, in 1862, of Rev. A. C. Preus as president of the 
Norwegian Synod. In his place was elected Rev. H. A. Preus, who, 
together with Rev. J. A. Ottesen, was destined to deal sternly with 


Clausen. 
But if the discussion of the slavery question was assiduously 


”"K. Maanedstidende, 1862, 230. 
*C. L. Clausen, op. cit., 57. This observation can easily be extended to 
all the meetings of the Synod, as his tactics invariably met with the same 


countermove. 
* Church Council, op. cit., 42. 


212 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


kept out of the public meetings of the Synod, “it was to be dis- 
cussed so much more at the [private] pastoral conferences; for 
there,’ Clausen observes, “they had me alone, and they could also 
call in such assistants as Profs. Walther, Sihler, and Craemer.” ** 
In these conferences, where, as he would have us believe, the oppo- 
sition kept the minutes, and, withal, kept an eagle eye on every 
statement, Clausen was made to cut a sorry figure. At the confer- 
ence in Decorah in 1861 he said that “liberty was not one of the 
things over which the government and parents have the power of 
dispensation,” and “whatever rights these have, they are given them 
for the good of the subjects, and if those in authority used these 
rights to the detriment of the governed, they could not expect to be 
obeyed as rulers; they had then violated their trust and exceeded 
the rights given them.” Clausen claims that he never made these 
statements.** The other pastors stoutly maintained that all authority 
is of God and that all rebellion is sin, and admonished Clausen to 
retract the statements attributed to him for his own conscience’s 
sake.*> But Clausen resented what he called the other pastors’ 
“pressure upon his conscience.” It was soon after this conference 
that he issued his Retraction of The Pastors’ Resolution at Luther 
Valley. 

For two years, Clausen absented himself from the pastoral con- 
ferences, partly because he was an army chaplain for a year, and 
partly because he wished to keep out of the clutches of the pastors. 
When he did appear at the conference at Decorah in 1864, he was 
forced to retract the statements regarding the authority and function 
of government. That same year, another pastoral conference was 
held at Perry, Wisconsin, at which Clausen introduced the subject 
of slavery.°® After describing the patriarchal, the Jewish, and the 
Roman systems of slavery, he took up the attitude of the New Tes- 
tament to slavery. The Greek word doulos means slave, or bond- 
servant only when placed in juxtaposition to free-man. The New 
Testament doctrine of spiritual equality is made to apply equally to 
social and political equality. Many sessions were held, and finally, at 
Clausen’s request, Revs. B. J. Muus and H. P. Duborg were ap- 
pointed a subcommittee to confer with Clausen. The conferees 
agreed upon the following theses: 


1. Agreed: That if the civil law leaves unpunished various exer- 
cises of a slave owner’s rights (which are punished by divine law), 
slavery is not therefore a sin in itself. 

2. In I Tim. vi. 1 by servants under the yoke is understood 
slaves or bond-servants. 

In I. Tim. vi. « is taught: (a) that slaves can remain in the 
condition of servitude without sin; (b) that masters could have the 


°C. L. Clausen, op. cit., 57. This, too, has general application. 

** Op. cit., 28. 

* Church Council, op. cit., 21, and Clausen, op. cit., 28. 

** Reported by Church Council, op. ctt., 2ff., and Clausen, op. ctt., 56. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 213 


right to own slaves without sin; (c) that slaves are in duty bound 
to render the service of a bond-servant, and that masters have the 
EU without sinning thereby to demand this service from their 
slaves. 

This is taught clearly and unambiguously in I Tim. vi. 2. In 
Eph. vi. nothing is clearly and unambiguously taught that conflicts 
with | Tim. vi. 1, 2; nor in I Cor. vii. Rev. C. L. Clausen knew of 
no other passage that taught any thing clearly and unambiguously 
in conflict with the doctrine which they here agreed to find in I 
Arata phi bis oie 


Again Clausen had agreed with the Synod pastors; again, when 
he came home, he changed his mind. Rev. H. A. Preus, who was 
elected president of the Synod in 1862, wished to have visitas or 
episcopal inspection in Clausen’s congregations, and, at the same 
time, confer with him privately, but Clausen avoided this confer- 
ence. By appointment, Rev. b. J. Muus came to St. Ansgar to con- 
fer with Clausen, but Clausen was just ready to board the train for 
Dubuque, Lowa, so the conference was canceled. At the conference 
at Paint Creek in 1864, where Clausen had failed to show up, it 
was decided that H. A. Preus and Ottesen should call on Clausen 
at St. Ansgar. This they did. Several days were consumed in 
negotiations, in the course of which Ottesen and Preus lost patience 
with Clausen, especially when he would not admit his own state- 
ment at Perry, Wisconsin. By a series of stern admonitions Clau- 
sen’s resistance was worn down to the point that “by reasons and 
proofs as well as by the earnest and loving admonitions of the two 
brethren” he finally was brought to confess that he not only had 
taught false doctrines, but he had been guilty of what was worse, 
namely, of evasion. This he promised to confess to his congregation 
the following day; but try as hard as he would, Ottesen could not 
formulate a confession that suited Clausen. The next day Clausen 
said he would make no confession to his congregation.*® In his 
Gjenmale, Clausen says that these conferences annoyed him greatly 
and that the pastors continually “pressed” him to accept arguments 
that were contrary to his convictions on the point. Ottesen and 
Preus were evidently not the men to win Clausen. Every visit made 
matters worse, until Clausen’s congregations at Silver Lake and 
Lime Creek resigned from the Synod in 1865. They forthwith 
changed their decision, however, and called as their pastor Rev. T. 
A. Torgerson, a student from St. Louis, who later became president 
of the lowa District of the Norwegian Synod. 

During all this time, the Synod leaders were carrying on a 
spirited controversy on the same question with the theological faculty 
at Christiania (now Oslo). Clausen was denied any comfort from 
this, however, as not a rumble of this conflict was heard until 1866, 
when all the Acts were published. 


* Text in Church Council, op. cit., 26. 
*® Church Council, op. cit., 27, 28. 


214 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


The facts in the case are these: In 1861 the Synod leaders had 
asked the opinion of the faculty at Christiania in regard to The 
Pastors’ Resolution regarding slavery. The faculty replied in 1863. 
As their reply did not suit the Synod men, who claimed it was con- 
tradictory, and also because they wished to defer discussion until 
after the Civil War was over, nothing was said about the faculty’s 
findings in the matter. In the meantime, Rev. H. A. Preus, on 
behalf of the church council, wrote the faculty requesting that they 
take the matter up for renewed consideration. In order to demon- 
strate to the faculty that their views were “contradictory and at 
all events partly unbiblical,’ Rev. H. A. Preus asked the faculty 
at Decorah—Larsen and Schmidt—to write a Refutation (Imode- 
gaaelse), which he forwarded together with his request. No reply 
to this was received until after the Synod meeting in 1864. Preus 
placed the matter before the pastoral conference in 1864, and before 
the church council in 1865. In 1866 all Acts in the Slavery Ques- 
tion were laid before the Norwegian Synod which, in turn, or- 
dered them printed.*® 

As indicated, the faculty’s Opinion of The Pastors’ Resolution 
was given in 1863, in a somewhat long article. 


If slavery [they said] consists according to its concept in this 
that one human being regards and treats another as his property, 
that is, not as a person, but as a thing, not as an independent moral 
subject, but as a purely passive, selfless and lawless, impersonal 
object, then it is first of all evident that slavery as such is contrary 
to God’s original will with and toward man. Since “God made man 
in his own image’ and “made of one blood all nations of men for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth’ (Acts xvii. 26), he has thereby 
also originally placed them in a relationship of essential equality 
to each other as independent moral persons. 


The unity of the human family from the original pair makes 
men equal moral beings who have mutual moral influence upon each 
other. Brotherly love, which is one man’s fundamental duty over 
against another, presupposes necessarily that the one recognize the 
other as a fellow-human, his equal in everything that makes a man 
aman. To consider another human, or be considered by another 
human, as a mere thing, as an impersonal, dependent, lawless object, 
as is the case in slavery, where the master influences the slave but 
is not in turn influenced by the slave, must, therefore, be contrary 
to God’s will at creation and His original world-economy. Since this 
moral relationship does not exist in slavery, it is not a divine insti- 
tution, but solely a fruit of a will contrary to God’s, a will that en- 
tered the world through sin. According to the history of the world, 
slavery really belongs only among those who have turned away from 
God and have been left by God to their own devices. Considering 


*Found in Report of the Third Extraordinary Synod Meeting Held at 
Gyjerpen, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, June 20-28, 1866, 40. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 215 


God’s will at creation, on the one hand, and man’s sin, on the other, 
slavery’s relation to Christianity is plain; Christianity must perforce 
seek the abolition of slavery, which has its origin in sin and is against 
God's will. History also testifies that one of the fruits of Christianity 
is the abolition of slavery. In the place of the bond-servant, Chris- 
tianity has placed the serving brother. 

Then the faculty took up the question from a scriptural stand- 
point : 


Just as the Scripture does not declare it to be sin to be a slave or 
that it is the duty of the slave to break his chains, so it does not 
make it an unqualified sin to own slaves or say that the master is 
in duty bound to liberate his slaves. On the contrary, the Scripture 
places the institution of slavery—together with the social relations 
instituted by God Himself between man and wife, parents and 
children—under the Fourth Commandment “ (Eph. vi. 5-9 cf. v. 21— 
vi. 4; Col. ili, 22-iv. I cf. ili. 18-21). Presupposing that there were 
within the Christian congregations both Christian slaves and Chris- 
tian masters, the Scriptures admonish the former to regard their 
earthly lords, whether believers or unbelievers, as the representatives 
of the heavenly Lord, and serve them as such with reverence, sub- 
missiveness, and faithfulness (Eph. vi. 5-8; Col. iti. 22-25; I Tim. 
Migelewe mw litwit 10,1101 Witet, il. Lo). aul aqimonisnes a) Christian 
slave not to worry over, or be dissatisfied with, his status as a slave, 
as though that should in any way affect his Christian power and 
glory, but rather regard the spiritual freedom in Christ higher than 
the yoke of external servitude. 


Then toward the end of the Opinion the faculty again reasoned 
itself into the opinion that slavery is sin! 

In his respectful, but straightforward, reply,*t Rev. H. A. Preus, 
president of the Synod, said that they had requested an opinion based 
on God’s Word. This Opinion not only was not based on God’s 
Word, but it was even contrary to God’s Word. In order to give 
the faculty an opportunity for reconsideration, the Opinion was 
returned with a Refutation (Imodegaaelse) by Prof. Laur. Larsen 
and Prof. F. A. Schmidt.4* In a keenly analytical fashion, the De- 
corah professors take up for discussion the various points of the 
Opinion, and, of course, find it wanting in several fundamental as- 
spects. The faculty says that the institution of slavery spoken of 
in the Bible is permissible, hence not sin, and then adds that this 
type of slavery is not slavery. What right has the faculty to state 
that the Bible does not mean slavery when it specifically speaks of 
slavery? If one accept the faculty’s assertion on this point, he 
naturally must conclude with the faculty that it is only this non-ex- 
istent slavery that is not sin. Further, setting aside the clear state- 


* The Reformed call this the Fifth Commandment. 

“ Report, 1866, 57. 

““Tmodegaaelse af Fakultetets Betankning ved Professorerne i Decorah,” 
by Laur. Larsen and F. A. Schmidt, in Report, 1866, 45. 


216 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


ments of Scripture, because these do not agree with the faculty's 
conception of slavery, the faculty must seek arguments to prove that 
slavery is sin in the original will of God at creation. Conceding that 
poverty, humble circumstances, inequality, and slavery—the great- 
est of human evils—do not belong to God’s original will at creation, 
we cannot, nevertheless, declare that these are incompatible with 
Christianity and must be abolished by it. If the faculty contends 
that Christianity must make equal the high and low, the rich and 
poor, master and servant, government and subject, then its doctrines 
will lead directly into communism. One can be a Christian in any 
of these estates, hence Christianity cannot be said to be incom- 
patible with slavery, which is one of them. Finally, there are plain 
contradictions in the document. On the one hand it is stated that 
slavery is sin in itself, and, on the other, that it is not sin under 
every circumstance to own slaves. If slavery be sin, the master 
sins in owning slaves, the slave sins in being in servitude. 

Continuing their Refutation,*® Prof. Larsen and Prof. Schmidt 
argue that the faculty’s definition of slavery is altogether faulty and 
extreme, robbing the slave of his personality and his moral existence. 
Jurisdiction over a slave extends only to his temporal, physical 
part, so that he by his physical and mental faculties performs what 
belongs to man’s earthly calling. But the essentially spiritual, 
heavenly side of a man’s person or soul in the ultimate sense of the 
word, no man can own, and of that no man can have jurisdiction. 
Only God, who has redeemed this nobler part of man, can rule over 
this higher self, wherefore He strictly forbids men in I Cor. vii. 
23 to be “the servants of men.’ ‘This higher self makes a man 
an independent, moral being, a person, and over this no man, only 
God alone, can rule; consequently the slave possesses those most 
highly praised boons, human rights. That moral influences are not 
mutual between master and slave is a mere assumption, based on the 
false premise that a slave is robbed of his moral, personal existence. 
Granting it does not exist, the master can still not degrade a slave 
from being a person created in God’s image to a mere thing, as 
the slave under even the most abject conditions retains his higher 
spiritual ego, his moral personality. Only if the master had juris- 
diction over the slave’s higher soul, so that he reduced him to a 
mere machine, could he destroy his personality. In that case slavery 
would be spiritual, hence in the sphere of the invisible. The faculty 
likewise says slavery is sin in itself, but that there are times when 
slavery is not sin. The faculty’s definition is therefore false and 
impossible. 

In opposition to this definition the professors placed Philip 
Melanchthon’s definition, and on the basis of that they again stated 
the biblical doctrine of slavery. The faculty confused physical 
slavery with spiritual slavery. Christianity does abolish spiritual 
servitude, it said, but even this will not be completely realized until 

“For text see Report, 1866, 45. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 217 


the Last Day. Certainly, before God and in a spiritual way, there 
is no difference between bond and free, male and female, and yet, 
who shall say that the man as man and the woman as woman do not 
have their respective Christian duties? If physical slavery is abol- 
ished by this passage (Gal. iii. 28), physical freedom is likewise 
abolished, as it says “‘there is neither bond nor free.” 

The Christiania faculty did not deign to take any cognizance of 
this spirited show of Norwegian American learning. In a short 
note it coldly informed Rev. H. A. Preus that it saw no reason 
why it should either retract or change any part of its Opinion.** 

Incensed that the faculty should refuse to take the theologians 
of the young American church seriously, the church council made 
reply that the Synod president had appealed to the faculty, little ex- 
pecting the faculty to disagree with The Pastors’ Resolution, since 
God’s plain Word is the same in Norway as in America.*® It was 
the experience of the young American Lutheran body that violent 
partisanship blinds the eye and makes the heart bitter where political 
expediency runs counter to biblical truth. The contention that slavery 
is absolutely sinful is merely a single paragraph in the present-day 
anti-Christian program. Most intimately connected with this is the 
question of the absolute necessity of temporal freedom, which, 
again, is only one among the several “natural and inalienable human 
rights; liberty, property, security, and resistance against all oppres- 
sion.’ In the same category are the distinctions between absolute 
and relative goods, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom 
of this world; whether government is of God, whether the Fourth 
(Lutheran enumeration) Commandment is valid, whether God’s 
Word has absolute authority and sufficiency—in short, the question 
of slavery is only one step toward ultimate and absolute carnal 
emancipation, when government shall be overthrown and man shall 
tule in God’s stead in a carnal millennium. To have published the 
faculty’s Opinion would have meant utter confusion, as our oppo- 
nents would in triumph have pointed to the part in which a con- 
clusion is drawn from faulty premises as favorable to themselves ; 
we could, with equal right, point to the scriptural exposition as being 
favorable to us. We hardly expected a Christian faculty to treat a 
grave matter like this with the cold hauteur with which it replied 
to the Synod president. We shall still give the faculty a chance to 
correct the abysmal error of the first part, as this neutralizes and 
contradicts the scriptural proofs adduced in the second part. 

The Christiania faculty naturally ignored this passionate out- 
burst, and the Synod leaders let the matter rest until the war was 
over and men had regained their composure. Finally, in 1866, as the 
Synod leaders no longer deemed it necessary to withhold the infor- 
mation that they had, they laid all the documents or Acts in the case 
before the Synod convention, which thereupon ordered them printed. 

If the Synod men had been disappointed with the faculty’s 

“ Report, 1866, 60. “ Thid., 1866, 61. 


218 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Opinion, Rev. C. L. Clausen was extremely well pleased with it. 
Larsen—Clausen attributed it to him—had again overstepped the 
bounds and introduced the question of the right of ownership of 
slaves. Here was Clausen’s chance, and he took advantage of it. 
In a number of vehement articles in Emigranten in 1866, he attacked 
the pastors as well as their views. His arguments are summed up 
in the thesis that one man cannot own another, nor has one man 
the right to sell another.*® But even this, the pastors said, was re- 
futed by Scriptures because Isaac “had possessions of flocks and 
possessions of herds, and great store of servants” (Gen. xxvi. 14). 
The technical point as to what belonged to a definition of slavery 
was also taken up, Clausen stoutly maintaining that the definition 
counterpoised by Larsen and. Schmidt against the faculty’s “faulty” 
definition was no definition at all. The questions of property rights 
of slaves and of the definition of slavery were discussed at a meet- 
ing in Christiania in 1867, between Clausen and H. A. Preus, with 
Prof. Gisle Johnson as intermediary. Here Prof. Johnson sided with 
both, consequently no settlement was effected. 

Then came the meeting at Chicago in 1868. In a number of 
preparatory conferences 


so much progress had been made, that both parts agreed that the 
condition of forced servitude in the New Testament was not sinful, 
and that this both in and outside of Scriptures is called slavery. 
Rev. C. L. Clausen, however, would not concede that this word is 
used in its precise meaning, and claimed that slavery in itself was 
heathen slavery and therefore sinful. Since, in the meantime, some 
degree of unity seemed to have been attained, the Synod decided to 
continue the discussion of the subject with the result already gained 
as the starting point, in the hope that the struggle thereby might be 
brought to a successful close. This hope was only partially fulfilled. 
The majority of the Synod agreed not only to the points that Clausen 
had conceded [that is, eight of the ten theses], but also to the point 
that what Scriptures call a slave is a real slave, and that we have 
no right to say that this word in Scripture is not used in its simple, 
precise, and straightforward meaning. On Clausen, however, this 
great unanimity of the Synod made such an impression, that he 
withdrew from the Synod. 


Clausen’s impression of the “progress” that had been made at 
these conferences was that the pastors had conceded several points, 
but that no record was kept of these, while his concessions were 
carefully tabulated.*® Under the impression that the pastors were 
conceding that slavery was not a divine institution, that it was not 
enforced by the Fourth Commandment, that a slave could not be 
inherited or sold, he conceded that the condition of servitude could 
be both severe and forced and yet be in accord with the command 

“C. L. Clausen, op. ctt., 70 ff. 


“K. Maanedstidende, 1868, 221. 
“ Clausen, op. cit., 80 ff., and in Church Council, op. cit., 50. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 219 


to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. The servitude acknowledged 
by the apostles was, of course, not sinful in itself. Clausen claims 
that he stretched himself to the limit and accepted the first eight 
of the Chicago theses of 1868, but balked at the ninth and tenth 
as being a device on the part of the other pastors to worm their 
way out of the concessions they had made. These latter theses, 
the other pastors admitted, contained the doctrine of slavery as a 
divine institution protected by God’s Law, and giving the owner the 
pant of inheritance and sale of slaves. The fateful Chicago theses 
ollow: 


1. The forced servitude mentioned in the New Testament (Col. 
ili. 22 ff., iv. 1; Tit. ii. 9; Eph. vi. 5-9; I Tim. vi. 2) is not in and by 
itself sinful. 

2. In this condition of forced servitude the master had the right 
to demand of the [bond] servant that he use his abilities and energies 
according to his master’s will in all the things in which he by his 
obedience does not deny God the obedience which he owes Him 
CINCMI Or pOVL. 5) tis COletiin22 Cl. ACctsS.ve20 ). 

3. This condition of servitude is called forced on account of the 
right which belongs to the master according to thesis two, and the 
duty devolving upon the servant, and especially because the servant 
has no right to demand the abolition of his servitude and to procure 
his own freedom. 

4. Even if it can be supposed that the bond-servant voluntarily 
entered, or voluntarily remains in, this servitude, and even if he can 
be freed, even then this servitude is called forced servitude. 

5. This condition of servitude is, and is called, forced, even 
though the bond-servant obeys gladly and willingly, and not merely 
because he must (Eph. vi. 6 ff.). 

6. In this condition of forced servitude the servant has no right 
to demand any other wages than that which belongs to his daily 
bread. 

7. In this forced servitude the master is obliged to show his 
servant love and every justice and fairness, according to God’s Word 
in Matt. vii. 12 and Col. iv. I. 

8. Since this forced servitude is a civil institution, the right and 
duty mentioned in theses two to six are civil rights and duties. But 
the Christian master, just because he wishes to follow the command- 
ment of love and the admonition to fairness, will not always insist 
on his strict rights, but often in his conscience feel in duty bound 
to relinquish them. 

g. The condition of forced servitude described above is by the 
usage of language in and outside of the holy Scriptures designated 
by the words master and bond-servant (or slave). 

10. The condition of bondage spoken of in the New Testament 
is an actual servitude, or an actual slavery.” 


As indicated above, Clausen subscribed to the first eight. To the 
subscription to the ninth he added the reservation that slave in the 


“Text most conveniently found in Church Council, op. cit., 48. 


220 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


New Testament is not used in a literal sense; to the tenth he would 
not subscribe. He introduced resolutions setting forth his own 
ideas, but these were rejected by a vote of ninety-nine to twelve, with 
seven not voting. Very much grieved, he left the meeting. Al- 
though it was nearly midnight Saturday when the vote was taken, 
the Synod decided to have a committee go through Clausen’s reso- 
lutions and point out what was right and what was wrong in them.°° 
On Sunday afternoon, an extra session was called at which these 
“false elements’ were eliminated, and Clausen’s resolutions in ex- 
purgated form were accepted. Clausen, who had already handed in 
his resignation, was not reconciled by this act; he remained firm 
in the conviction that, for the present at least, cooperation between 
himself and the Synod pastors was out of the question. Rather 
than expose himself to pressure at every contact with the pastors, 
and rather than be forced to admit arguments and doctrines which he 
with good conscience could not acknowledge, he now took his leave 
of the Synod. The resignation is dated June 28, 1868.5: With 
Clausen went his own and a few other congregations, among them 
the Big Canoe congregation near Locust, Iowa, in which Erik Ellef- 
sen was the dominant power. 

Thus was the dead issue of slavery “settled.” Larsen, the man 
of God, who, like a prophet, looked neither to right nor left, had 
been zealous—possibly to indiscretion—for what he considered to 
be the only true conception of the scriptural doctrine of slavery. 
Clausen, the man of the people, who, like a spokesman of humanity, 
looked chiefly to the right and left, had been zealous—possibly to 
unscripturalness—for what he considered to be the only true con- 
ception of the American doctrine of human liberty. Both sides erred 
in that they showed too little inclination toward being reconciled. 

It is interesting to note Clausen’s attitude toward the Synod men 
as he leaves. For the lovable and conciliatory ex-president of the 
Synod, Rev. A. C. Preus, Clausen retained the kindliest of feelings. 
Nor were all the Synod pastors to blame, but 


there is, and there has been for a number of years among the Synod 
pastors, a clique of four or five, with the president, Rev. H. A. Preus, 
in the lead, who really directed all things both in the Synod meetings 
and in the conferences. What these agreed to set forth and put 
through, it had seldom been of any use for the other pastors or the 
lay people to oppose; for between the members of the clique or 
conclave there is not only great ability and talent, but a striking 
unanimity, as if their ideas had been molded in the same form. While 
there are among the other pastors also very able and gifted men, 
there is no internal unity, and they lack above all the energy and 
tenacity which is characteristic of the clique and assures it of victory 
sooner or later—for the time being.” 


° Text of resolutions in Church Council, op. ctt., 49. 
* Text in Church Council, op. cit., 50. 

Clausen, op. cit., 60. 

* [bid., 85. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 221 


It is a question, of course, whether the presence of a clique in 
the Synod warranted Clausen’s breaking the unity of the church; 
on the other hand, a governing clique could not fail to exasperate 
anyone who possessed a high-strung democratic spirit and a slight 
amount of personal ambition. 

During this time, controversies were also carried on by the Synod 
leaders in other quarters. Prof. Larsen, in 1861, had declared that 
the Church of Norway was no longer “what it had been.” Rev. H. 
A. Preus, for nearly ten years, had carried on in Kirkelig Maaneds- 
tidende a controversy with Norsk Kirketidende (Norwegian Church 
Times) on the questions of lay activity, Chiliasm, the relation of the 
Word to the Sacraments, and the so-called open questions. Re- 
peatedly Preus charged that the Church of Norway had little re- 
gard for pure doctrine. In the slavery controversy, the Synod 
leaders openly charged the Christiania faculty with placing reason 
above the Scriptures. They were evidently drifting apart, the Ameri- 
can church charging that the Mother Church was “changing,” 
whereas, possibly, the truth is that the Norwegian American church 
had learned from “Missouri” to take a definite stand for Lutheran 
principles, and thus was inclined to deem the Mother Church rather 
unstable. 

In other ways it was becoming increasingly evident that Norwe- 
gian American Lutheranism was drifting away from the Church of 
Norway. From the very beginning the pastors in Norway, with 
very few exceptions, had denounced emigration, and in every way 
tried to prevent it. When the lower classes had emigrated in spite 
of this, only a handful of pastors came over to serve these wilful 
children of the State Church. When Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson 
returned to the Mother Church, and entered a plea for these people 
who were, in spite of all, the true children of the Church, he met 
with very little response, though certain individuals, such as Tollef 
Bakke, had always been generous toward the Norwegian Americans. 
When Prof. Laur. Larsen returned, he not only found little readi- 
ness on the part of the Mother Church to help, but he found ill-con- 
cealed opposition in many quarters. Through it all, however, the 
Synod men had to admit that they had had some staunch friends 
in Norway. The noble Gisle Johnson had sent them some of the 
best theological students he had, and continued to do so even after 
the seeming break over the slavery question. It was Gisle Johnson 
who had arranged to have studtosus theologie Fr. Wilhelm Bugge 
apply for the theological stipendium of the Synod with a view to 
making him a theological professor in that body. Here, again, the 
general distrust of the Norwegian Church became apparent in the 
Synod’s stipulation that Bugge spend a year of study “at an ortho- 
dox institution in America,” which, of course, was at St. Louis.*4 
The promising young man resented this aspersion, as he took it, upon 
his Mother Church, and chose to stay in Norway. Thus was lost 

% K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 263. 


222 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


to the Synod this most brilliant student, who became one of Nor- 
way’s outstanding bishops and foremost theological professors. 
Among the laity, the wall of nationalism was rising between the 
Norwegian Americans and the Norwegians. Many of the emigrated 
Norwegians from the lower classes, who had acquired some wealth 
and a great deal of bravado, returned to Norway and made a dis- 
gusting show of both. Especially did they delight in flaunting their 
new-found power in the face of their former oppressors, the office- 
holding class. Little wonder, then, that the people in Norway either 
envied or despised the Norwegian Americans; certainly they re- 
fused to treat these “exiles from home,’ both high and low, with 
the respect that the Norwegian Americans at every turn demanded. 
Through it all, the Synod. was making great headway. Luther 
College had been built, and great gains were made in lay and pas- 
toral membership. Manifestly, the Norwegian immigrant, whether 
lay or cleric, preferred the aristocratic Synod leadership to the 
somewhat poiseless leadership in Eielsen’s and the Augustana 
Synods. Indeed, several Augustana pastors joined the Synod dur- 
ing these years of strife. Though the Synod lost Rev. C. L. Clausen, 
it had gained other pastors besides being unified in doctrine and 
practice as never before. But the Synod lost an able man whose 
influence with the common man, and whose strategic location in 
northern Iowa and southern Minnesota, cast long shadows ahead. 


CHAPTER XI 
DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITIES 


v. SUNDAY—ABSOLUTION—-AUGUSTANA—CONFERENCE, 


ANOTHER controversy in which Clausen was destined to take an 
active part for a time was the controversy in regard to the Sunday 
question. Not only did Clausen oppose the Synod leaders very 
strenuously from 1861 to 1868 in regard to their stand on slavery, 
but during this same time (1862 to 1868) he also opposed them on 
their doctrine in regard to Sunday. This difference must be noted, 
however: At the meeting of 1868 he acknowledged that the other 
pastors were right in regard to the Sunday question, but at that very 
same meeting he found their doctrine in regard to slavery so errone- 
ous that he had to quit their company. 

The possibilities for mischief were hardly less in connection with 
the Sunday question than in connection with the slavery question. 
Slavery touched Norwegian American patriotism, which was not 
yet highly developed; moreover, the question was not discussed pub- 
licly until after the Civil War and then in such an abstruse, academic 
fashion as to leave American slavery almost altogether out of ac- 
count. But the Sunday question touched a deep-seated conception 
which had been nourished for centuries in a country where Adven- 
tists were unknown. From the days of orthodoxy the Norwegians 
had acquired a genuine respect for that which is holy, and this had 
been further developed in the days of pietism. During the period 
of pietism the Norwegians had become devout readers of devo- 
tional literature, but though they read the Bible, they neglected al- 
most altogether the Augsburg Confession. Pontoppidan’s “Sandhed 
til Gudfrygtighed” (Truth unto Godliness), however, had attained 
to a position of unchallenged authority. Since this Explanation con- 
tained a very brief statement that the Christians had chosen Sunday 
instead of the Jewish sabbath because Christ arose from the dead 
on that day, the Seventh Day Adventists made use of this as a 
starting point in their arguments with the Norwegians when the 
latter came to America.? 

As early as 1855, Rev. A. C. Preus found it necessary to explain 
through Kuirkelig Maanedsttdende why “the Christian Church has 
the first day of the week as sabbath instead of the seventh.” ? This 
was occasioned by the work of the Sabbatarians or Seventh Day 

* Johs. Ylvisaker in H. Halvorsen, Festskrift, 236 ff. 

*K. Maanedstidende, 1855, 92. 

223 


224 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Adventists in his congregations at Koshkonong. As other pastors 
were similarly troubled by the Seventh Day Aventists, the Synod pas- 
tors made a reprint of Luther’s Large Catechism and distributed it 
in great numbers. Even this failed to convince many, for Luther’s 
doctrine was so different from anything that they had yet heard, 
that some believed that it had either been falsified on this point, or 
else that Luther was wrong.’ 

A mere glance at Luthers’ Large Catechism will make it clear 
why they felt this way. Luther says in the Large Catechism: 
“Now, in the Old Testament, God separated the seventh day, and 
appointed it for rest, and commanded that it should be regarded holy 
above all others. According to this external observance, this com- 
mandment was given to the Jews alone, that they should abstain 
from toilsome work, and rest, so that both man and beast might 
recuperate, and might not be debilitated by unremitting labor.” * 
The Pharisees interpreted this too strictly and continually demanded 
that Christ live up to their sabbath commands, 


just as though this commandment were fulfilled in this, viz., that no 
external [manual] work whatever be performed, which was not the 
meaning, but, as we shall hear, that they sanctify the sabbath as a 
Day of Rest. This commandment, therefore, according to its gross 
sense, does not pertain to us Christians; for it is altogether an ex- 
ternal matter, like the other ordinances of the Old Testament, which 
were bound to particular customs, persons, times, and places, and of 
which we have now been made free through Christ. 


We need the sabbath, however, for rest and for a set day for 
worship. But the latter “is not limited to any one time, as with the 
Jews, that it must be just on this or that day”; for all days are holy 
and equal before God. We make Sunday especially holy for our- 
selves by devoting it to the hearing of God’s Word; “yet that the 
observance of rest be not so strictly interpreted as to forbid any 
other incidental and necessary work.” Not in resting do we sanctify 
the sabbath, but in hearing the Word of God and in doing holy deeds. 
God will require an account of us as to how we hear God’s Word; 
especially are those fastidious spirits to be reproved who become 
tired of the Word of God when they have heard it once or twice. 
The Word, then, makes the sabbath, not the day, nor abstention from 
work. 

Article XXVIII of the Augsburg Confession® condemns the 
bishops who wish to put Christians again under the bondage of law 
(Acts xv. 10; Col. ii. 16, 20, 23), because the Bible condemns these 
commands as “Jewish fables” (Tit. i. 14) and “doctrines of devils” 
(I Tim. iv. 1ff). Paul, therefore, admonishes them to abide in their 
Christian liberty and no more be entangled in the yoke of bondage 

*K. Maanedstidende, 1862, 288. 


*H. E. Jacobs, People’s Edition of the Book of Concord, 401. 
* [bid., 65. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 225 


(Gal. v. 1). “Those who judge that, by the authority of the Church, 
the observance of the Lord’s Day instead of the sabbath day was 
ordained as a thing necessary do greatly err. Scripture has abro- 
gated the sabbath day.” 

The doctrine of Christian liberty found in Luther’s Large Cate- 
chism and the Augsburg Confession was vastly different from the 
popular conceptions of the sabbath introduced into Norway, espe- 
cially that which came through pietistic channels. The Synod leaders 
were again at a popular disadvantage, with Rev. C. L. Clausen 
taking the popular side of the question. 

But the ever-vigilant leaders were ready to set the people right 
on this point. In an article in Kirkelig Maanedstidende,® in 1862, 
the editor, Rev. J. A. Ottesen, discussed in thirteen theses the Lu- 
theran doctrine of Sunday.. These theses were taken up for re- 
newed discussion at the meeting of the Synod at Holden, Goodhue 
County, Minnesota, June 12-20, 1862.7. Since other pressing mat- 
ters prevented a full discussion of the subject, an informal vote was 
taken and the discussion was deferred until a later time.® 

At the Rock River (Wisconsin) meeting, June 10-17, 1863, the 
Sunday question was again taken up. Rev. C. L. Clausen did not 
agree with the first thesis (see below) in which “‘sabbath’”’ was taken 
as referring to no special day. Clausen thought that Sunday had a 
divine validity, inasmuch as he felt that other passages besides the 
Third Commandment (Lutheran enumeration) enjoined its ob- 
servance. When questioned further regarding these passages, he 
quoted Acts. xx. 7; I Cor. xvi. 2; and Rev. 1. 10. The Lord, more- 
over, signally honored the day by rising from the dead on that 
day, wherefore the Christians also hold it in honor. To this it was 
replied that, though Sunday was observed, it was not as a result of 
law. Since the ceremonial and civil laws of the Old Testament are 
abrogated, only the moral law remains. But the moral law does not 
contain a principle which must be applied to one day but not to the 
other six. Although Paul preached at Troas on Sunday (Acts 
xx. 7), this proves nothing as to our obligation to keep Sunday; 
the sabbatarians could argue with equal show of right that we should 
keep Saturday, since Christ preached in the synagogue on Saturday. 
The commandment “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy” 
(Ex. xx. 8) referred only to the Jews as is seen by the preface to 
the Commandments: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought 
thee xe of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 
Ext) 


*For March 15 and April 1, 1862. 

"K. Maanedstidende, 1862, 228. 

*Ibid., 1862, 238. 

° The sabbath is expressly called a “shadow” in Col. ii. 16, 17. In the New 
Testament (II Cor. LIT 7-1 Lith is expressly stated that the ‘ ‘ministrations 
of death, written and engraven in stones,” are “done away,” and in order to 
retain the moral law, the commandments are all repeated—except the third— 
in the New Testament. 


220 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


We need not trace further these discussions, which at times be- 
came extremely warm; indeed, at one time Clausen threatened to 
leave the meeting on account of certain personal references.1° He 
remained to the end, however, but refused to vote for the theses as 
they were finally formulated. These read: 


I. When in the Third Commandment it is said: “Remember the 
sabbath day to keep it holy,’ the word “sabbath day” does not have 
for us Christians any reference to a certain day such as it had for 
the Jews (ct, Col nti16, Rom. xiv. 5; 6; Gall iv.'9)/10)¢ 

2. On the contrary, for us Christians, the “sabbath day” in the 
Third Commandment means every day of our whole life, which shall 
be for us a spiritual day of rest in Christ. 

3. This spiritual day of rest, which consequently is the Christian’s 
whole life, we should, according to the Third Commandment, hallow, 
and this is done by a diligent and correct use of God’s Word. This 
is the moral element in the Third Commandment, which is binding 
for all time. 

4. That which in the present time should oblige us Christians to 
keep Sunday is therefore: (a) The order and established custom of 
the Christian Church, which we should observe for the sake of peace 
and) love Phil) iv88) 93) Romi! xiviy13 53) andl (Core xivine sme) 
the command of our government concerning this day, which we 
should obey for God’s sake according to the Fourth Commandment 
(Lutheran enumeration) and I Pet. ii. 13. 

5. Consequently we sin by unnecessary work on Sunday (a) 
against the Fourth Commandment, when we disobey the command 
of the government; (b) against the Third Commandment, insofar 
as we thereby neglect or despise God’s Word; (c) against love, 
when we without valid reason break the order and established cus- 
tom of the Church and give offense.” 


These five theses contain the gist of Rev. J. A. Ottesen’s thirteen 
theses of 1862. In 1868 Rev. C. L. Clausen retracted his statements 
that the Third Commandment has a divine command back of it. 

Others took up the cudgel, as, for instance, Prof. A. Weenaas 
of the Scandinavian Augustana Synod (later of the Conference) 
and Prof. Sven Oftedal of the Conference. Since this second stage 
of the controversy, which became inter-synodical rather than domes- 
tic, goes far beyond our present limits, we may merely remark that 
these new antagonists were very ably answered by more than half 
a dozen men of the Norwegian Synod, such as B. J. Muus, P. A. 
Rasmussen, V. Koren, J. A. Ottesen, J. B. Frick, H. A. Preus, and 
others. It is somewhat of a questionable compliment to the Synod 
that its own man—Clausen—furnished the opposition with their 
most telling arguments. 

When Prof. Laur. Larsen came to the meeting of the Norwegian 
Synod at Rock Prairie, Wisconsin, June 26 to July 2, 1861, possibly 
he had some apprehensions that the question of slavery would be 
raised, though he wished to avoid a discussion of that subject if it 


” K. Maanedstidende, 1863, 274. 4 Tbid., 1863, 260, 276, 277, 281. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 227 


were at all possible. On another question, Absolution, he felt en- 
tirely different, for this he had been asked to introduce. This ques- 
tion, indeed, was to provoke much more discussion than slavery 
ever did, for it was destined to be debated for over forty years, until 
it was finally settled in 1906. 

In introducing the subject, Prof. Larsen stated that he could do 
nothing better than to present the report from the ‘‘Missouri” Synod 
meeting of October, 1860. Rev. Th. J. Brohm, the author of the “Mis- 
souri’ articles on Absolution, divided his subject into eight theses, 
each of which was supported by copious quotations from the recog- 
nized fathers of the Lutheran Church and by occasional passages of 
Scripture. The theses themselves are probably as concise and short 
a presentation of the question involved as we can find. 


1, Absolution, or the forgiveness of sins, is, according to Luther’s 
teachings, the Gospel, whether proclaimed to many or few. 

2. Private Absolution is consequently not a power outside, or by 
the side of, the Gospel to forgive sins; it is nothing else than the 
preaching of the Gospel to the individual sinner. 

3. The guardians and givers of Absolution in the public ministry 
are the preachers of the Gospel. Otherwise it is the function of all 
Christians, as the whole Church originally was the keeper of the 
keys; but the one who by the services of these forgives sins is the 
Triune God. 

4. Absolution consists: (a) not in this that the confessor (the 
pastor) sits as a judge, and returns a verdict concerning the inner 
condition of the confessant; (b) nor in an empty pronouncement or 
wish that the sinner be forgiven; but (c) in a powerful impartation 
of the forgiveness of sins. 

5. The effect of Absolution (a) is not contingent upon man’s 
repentance, confession, and atonement, (b) but Absolution demands 
faith, creates and strengthens faith; (c) without faith it does not 
profit a man in the least, (d) although it is not therefore a clavis 
errans (a failing key). 

6. In private Absolution, no essentially different, or better, for- 
giveness is given than in the preaching of the Gospel. Further, it 
need not necessarily be thus administered in order to get the for- 
giveness of sins, as though no forgiveness of sins takes place without 
Absolution. Still it has its own peculiar worth and usefulness, 
because by it the individual is made more certain that he also has the 
forgiveness of sins. 

7, In close connection with private Absolution stands private 
confession, which latter is nothing else than a request for Absolu- 
tion. It has moreover also this advantage, that it gives the confessor 
(the pastor) opportunity to examine people, to apply the Word of 
God and the Catechism, to guard against the unworthy use of the 
sacraments, and to give all sorts of advice in difficult questions of 
conscience. Finally, it is a training in self-humiliation. Summa: it 
is an application of the Law and the Gospel. 

8 Confession is not commanded by God, but is, nevertheless, of 
the greatest usefulness. Consequently this should not be forced upon 
anyone as a necessary act, but where it exists, It ought to be main- 


228 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


tained; where it has fallen into disuse, it ought to be revived by 
recommending it and praising its usefulness.” 


In support of these theses, Prof. Larsen brought out the idea that 
the impartation of the forgiveness of sins on God’s part was not 
contingent upon anything human, which always is uncertain and 
faltering, but wholly upon God’s work and Word. Two things, he 
said, are necessary for our salvation: 1. The forgiveness of sins 
must be procured for us—which Christ indeed has done. 2. God 
must in virtue of Christ’s merit forgive us our sins, or specifically 
state that He is reconciled. This He has done by raising Christ from 

e dead (He was “raised again for our justification’), and by 
preaching the forgiveness of sins to all creation. In God’s heart, 
the sins of the whole world are already forgiven; but this does not 
help us until we become aware of the fact and believe it; where- 
fore we need the Word through which this grace is proclaimed to 
us. The Gospel is therefore nothing but a declaration of the for- 
giveness of sins, i.e. an Absolution. God says in Absolution to the 
sinner, “I am now reconciled and no longer angry; I therefore pro- 
claim to you the forgiveness of all your sins.” In case the sinner 
believes this, he has the forgiveness of sins. Private Absolution, as 
well as the Sacraments, can give nothing greater and better than the 
preaching of the Gospel, and at every administration of the Means 
of Grace Absolution takes place. God who reconciled the world to 
Himself (II Cor. v. 19) is no longer our enemy, but sends ambas- 
sadors to say “be ye reconciled to God” (II Cor. v. 20). In the 
general provisions to forgive sins (Mark x. 15; John xx. 25; Matt. 
Xvi. 19; xviii. 18), the private application of the Gospel is also in- 
volved. This is more specifically seen from John xx. 23; Matt. 
XVI. 19; xvili. 18; and Mark xvi. 15, where the contents of the 
Gospel are described as being the forgiveness of sins. The power 
to forgive sins is not given to a priestly order, but to the whole 
Church, which, however, exercises it through certain called persons. 
Absolution is powerful in the case of the unconverted as well as in 
the case of the converted, as Absolution is the bestowal of a gift 
which is prepared by God in Christ. 

The Means of Grace contain the treasury of grace, hence the dec- 
laration of the forgiveness of sins is not a mere empty sound, but 
an actual impartation of forgiveness. The Reformed and false 
Lutherans erroneously consider the Gospel as a mere story which 
has moral power to change the heart, whence faith arises; this faith, 
they think, is a glorious deed for the sake of which God forgives 
the sinner. Faith, on the contrary, is merely an empty hand, which 
lets itself be filled by God. It is an erroneous conception that once 
a man has the forgiveness of sins in Baptism and the Word, every 
subsequent preaching of the Gospel is merely a reminder of the once- 
given grace; preaching is actually a new impartation of grace of the 

~~ 3 Text in K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 236. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 229 


same quality and kind as that originally bestowed on the sinner. 
Faith is neither a dead nor fixed thing but a vital organism which 
constantly craves more grace. Consequently, the Gospel cannot be 
preached too often, nor can Absolution be given too often. 

The only condition for Absolution is Christ’s perfect satisfaction ; 
by our own attempts to provide satisfaction through our works out- 
side of Christ, we only arouse God’s wrath. The pastor must, there- 
fore, preach repentance, but must not demand it in such a way that 
people base their hope of forgiveness on it. Yet the Law must be 
preached so severely that it works contrition and drives the sinner 
to seek forgiveness. When Absolution demands faith, this demand 
comes not from the Law, but from the Gospel. If I see a rich man 
hold out his hand to offer me a gift, it is necessary that I, in case 
I shall receive the gift, also stretch forth my empty hand and 
accept it. As it is really the sight of the rich man’s hand that 
gives me courage to reach forth my hand, so it is the sight of 
God’s mercy which arouses our love and confidence so we _ be- 
lieve. 

Private confession is nowhere commanded in Scripture, not even 
in James v. 16. Aside from being a necessary prerequisite to pri- 
vate Absolution, it also gives the pastor an excellent opportunity to 
fulfil his duty as watchman and shepherd of his flock. So much for 
Larsen’s elaboration of the theses. 

Rev. B. J. Muus had been appointed to lead the discussion of 
Prof. Larsen’s paper.** He found nothing in the first three theses to 
comment upon; in the fourth he had his doubts concerning the word 
impartation, This should be corrected to read: “God gives and 
presents the forgiveness of sins in the Gospel or Absolution to all 
who hear the Word, and while indeed ail in that sense receive it, 
nevertheless only the believers retain it.” By tmpartation is under- 
stood that a thing is given and received, consequently it is hereby im- 
plied that God gives the forgiveness of sins also to unbelievers, who, 
of course, cannot receive it. In reply, it was brought out that from 
God’s side Absolution and the forgiveness of sins were actually 
given to both believers and unbelievers, to penitent and impenitent, 
to Judas as well as to Peter and Paul, in short, unconditionally to 
all who hear it. But, of course, the impenitent reject and despise 
this gift, inasmuch as they will not believe God when He offers the 
forgiveness of sins. Still these are given the forgiveness, as the 
Word cannot fail nor can the keys fail (i.e. they are not claves 
errantes). A pardoned prisoner might despise the pardon, and re- 
main in jail, not because he is not pardoned, but because he despises 
the pardon. So it is with the sinner who refuses to believe. The 
pardon is there whether he accepts or rejects it, though, of course, 
only he is benefited who accepts in faith. But faith is not a con- 
dition, else a person would have to have faith in his own faith; that 
is, he must believe he believes, and his belief creates the thing he 

*K. Maanedstidende, 1861, 244. 


230 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


believes. This is absurd. He must not center his faith on anything 
in himself but in the Word and promises of God. 

Rey. B. J. Muus declared himself in full accord with all that had 
been said. Muus, however, had been unfortunate in the use of cer- 
tain terms as: the pastor should “‘try the condition of the heart as 
far as is humanly possible.”’ Objections were raised to this, and, 
when Muus protested that he meant exactly the same as the pastors 
were saying, they replied that it was not a question of what he meant 
or thought, but of what he had said. In theology, he was told, it all 
depended on the words he used, as Scripture commands the teachers 
to use the correct form of doctrine (II Tim. i. 13) and “all speak 
the same thing” (I Cor. i. 10). Muus regarded this as a nervous 
solicitude for the truth and refused to recant when the other Synod 
pastors very emphatically called upon him to do so. In what seems 
to be sheer perversity he again attacked the expression powerful 1m- 
partation and, with two others, refused to vote for the theses until 
the words should be stricken. At the adjournment of the meeting 
both sides agreed that this question needed further discussion.** 

Nothing more was done about Muus, as he probably meant ex- 
actly what he said when he stated that he fully agreed with the Synod 
pastors. This is borne out by the fact that he defended the Synod 
doctrine by word of mouth and in writing.t® Possibly he merely 
wanted to make it plain that he would not yield to compulsion or 
threats. On their side, the other pastors soon had their hands full 
with Rev. C. L. Clausen and the slavery question. It was not 
good policy, therefore, to stir up any trouble with Muus, who was 
an able theologian and a keen dialectician. In any event, Absolution 
was not destined to become a domestic issue, as was the case with 
slavery. 

But there were external foes who were ready to make the most 
of Muus’s arguments. The Scandinavian Augustanans immediately 
took up Muus’s arguments and elaborated upon them. Finally the 
Synod leaders invited the Scandinavian Augustanans to a confer- 
ence, which was held at Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin, 1864. The 
theses read by Prof. Larsen in 1861 were made the basis of the 
discussion, and it developed that the following articles especially 
became bones of contention: 


1. Absolution, or the forgiveness of sins, is, according to Luther’s 
teaching, the Gospel, whether proclaimed to many or few. 

4. (b) Absolution [does not consist] in an empty pronouncement 
or wish that the sinner be forgiven, but (c) in a powerful imparta- 
tion of the forgiveness of sins. 

5. (b) Absolution demands faith, creates and strengthens faith; 
(c) without faith it does not profit a man in the least, (d) although 
it is not therefore a clavis errans (a failing key).” 

* Thid., 1861, 253. 
* E.g. in an article in Emigranten, February 11, 1867. 


7” V. Koren, “Et venligt Ord i en vigtig Strid,’ in Emigranten, ‘March 
11, 1867. Reprinted in Samlede Skrifter, III, 45. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 231 


Just as Rev. B. J. Muus had formerly objected, so now the Scan- 
dinavian Augustanans objected strenuously to the doctrine that Ab- 
solution or the Gospel is a powerful impartation of the forgiveness 
of sins. The Augustanans maintained that the Gospel imparts the 
forgiveness of sins to believers, but not to unbelievers. The Synod 
pastors insisted that the Gospel is and remains the same, whether 
received or rejected by men, and that it is therefore a powerful im- 
partation of the forgiveness of sins to all who hear it, whether they 
are believers or unbelievers. Here, then, the issue was drawn, and 
here, as Rev. V. Koren remarked, the parties “stand to this day 
ETO [nan 

It was inevitable that the discussion should center itself about 
the Gospel, as Absolution, according to both sides, is the personal 
application of the Gospel to the individual, whereas preaching is a 
general application of the Gospel. Is the Gospel and Absolution 
one thing when applied to the believer and another when applied to 
the unbeliever, or is it the same regardless of to whom it is applied? 
That was the question that was to be discussed for over forty years. 
The Synod pastors stressed the objective validity of the Gospel; it 
had in it the forgiveness of sins, and actually offered this to men. 
The mere fact that some failed to accept this did not do away with its 
objective reality. This, of course, is the orthodox emphasis on the 
objective reality of salvation as expressed particularly in the for- 
giveness of sins through the work of Christ. The Augustanans 
adopted the more subjective pietistic view and emphasized the fact 
that the Gospel did not have any saving or forgiving effect in the 
case of the unbeliever. If it did not have any saving or forgiving 
effect, they said, why speak of the Gospel as imparting the forgive- 
ness of sins? How was the forgiveness of sins powerfully imparted 
to an unbeliever who, nevertheless, remained unabsolved? Out from 
this subjective reasoning, they, as the Synod men thought, really 
approached the idea that each one made his own Gospel—if he be- 
lieved there was forgiveness in the Gospel; if he did not, there was 
no forgiveness in it. When in defense of their view the Augustanans 
quoted the passage: ‘‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, 
neither cast ye your pearls before swine,” the Synod pastors replied 
that the mere fact that what was holy was given to dogs, and that 
pearls were cast before swine, did not in the least affect the intrinsic 
quality of what was holy or of the pearls—they were holy and pearls 
regardless of their abuse.1® If the Gospel and Absolution contained 
nothing more than what man by faith put into them, then man really 
had to depend on his faith—he had to have faith in his own faith— 
and not in the Gospel. 

At the end of the colloquy both parties formulated their views 
on this subject: 


* “Ht venligt Ord.” in Samlede Shrifter, III, 47. 
* Johs. Ylvisaker, in Halvorsen, Festskrift, 253. 


232 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


The Augustanans taught: The Gospel contains, holds forth, and 
offers the forgiveness of sins to all who hear it, but this forgiveness 
is given, imparted, and presented only to those who in faith receive 
it. 

The Synod pastors taught: The preaching of the Gospel gives, 
presents, and imparts the forgiveness of sins to all to whom it is 
proclaimed, whether they believe or not (although it is not accepted 
by all).” 


The chief difference between the contestants seems to have been 
in the essence rather than in the effect of Absolution. Both agreed 
that the Gospel offered the forgiveness of sins, but the one side held 
that it was given only to those who in faith received it, while the 
other side said that it was given also to unbelievers, though they did 
not accept it. Both agreed that unbelievers received no benefit from 
such an Absolution. 

Since the controversy extends far beyond the limits of our paper, 
we shall merely state that the Synod undertook to go to the bottom 
of this and related subjects in the so-called “Traktat Nr. 4” (Tract 
No. 4), in which Absolution is treated especially in theses seven and 
eight. On the Scandinavian Augustana and later the Conference 
side Prof. A. Weenaas and others took part. Eielsen’s Synod also 
took a very active part. The question was finally settled in 1906, 
when committees from the United Norwegian Lutheran Church, 
Hauge’s Synod, and the Norwegian Synod agreed on the following 
theses in a session at St. Paul, Minnesota, March 27-30, 1906: 


1. Absolution, which according to God’s command and in His 
name is given those who desire the consolation of the Gospel, is 
God’s own absolving act through the office of the Word. 

2. In Absolution God declares to the sinner the forgiveness of all 
his sins as a gracious and promised good, which is established and 
procured by the merit of Christ’s blood, and stored up for reception 
in the Gospel’s gracious promises. 

3. The means whereby the sinner receives, appropriates, and 
becomes partaker of the gift of forgiveness, and, in Absolution as if 
by God Himself, must be tendered, declared, and presented, is faith. 

4. Absolution is always a genuine and valid Absolution of God, 
although it does not benefit without faith, and although an impeni- 
tent and unbelieving hypocrite does not become a partaker of the 
gift of the forgiveness of sins which is declared unto him. 

5. When, according to customary church language, it is rightly 
said that only the penitent should be absolved, it is not thereby said 
that the administrators of the office of the keys are able to try the 
hearts and pass judgment on the condition of the confessant’s heart, 
but only that it is their duty conscientiously to exercise care in 
regard to the confessant’s confession in word and life in order not 
to give that which is holy to the dogs or throw the pearls to the 
swine (Matt. vii. 6).” 

jy. A. Bergh, Den norsk lutherske Kirkes Historie 1 Amerika, 174. 
* [bid., 436. 


Tm 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 233 


Thus it seems that this discussion ended just about where it 
began. Muus’s idea of trying the hearts “as far as this is possible” 
was rejected; so was the idea that faith created the content of the 
Gospel. On the other hand, the Synod had already in 1872 decided 
to drop the words powerful wmpartation, as they were subject to be- 
ing misconstrued. It thus took forty years to construct a single set 
of theses that reflected the spirit of Article XXV of the Augsburg 
Confession, which reads: 


And the people are most carefully taught concerning the faith and 
assurance of Absolution, about which, before this time, there was 
profound silence. Our people are taught that they should highly prize 
Absolution, as being the voice of God, and pronounced at His 
command. The power of the keys is commended, and we show what 
great consolation it brings to anxious consciences; that God requires 
faith to believe such Absolution as a voice sounding from Heaven, 
and that such faith in Christ truly obtains and receives the forgive- 
ness of sins.” 


Closely connected with this is the controversy about the “Justi- 
fication of the World” (Verdens Retfardiggjorelse), but this falls 
altogether outside the limits of our present studies. The most serious 
phase of the whole situation is the fact that these subjective arid ob- 
jective views were bound to clash, once they approached the delicate 
question of predestination. Here the orthodox wing would begin 
with God and His plans for our salvation even before the foundation 
of the world was laid. The subjectivists, or pietists, would begin 
with faith in the individual and say that those who believe were 
destined to be saved. Prof. F. A. Schmidt later saw the possibilities 
of this problem, and Norwegian Lutheranism was sadly rent, only 
to be reunited along other lines. This also falls outside our present 
limits, however. 

In 1868, when Rev. C. L. Clausen left the Norwegian Synod 
as a result of the slavery controversy, he was free to join one of two 
existing Norwegian Lutheran bodies: Eielsen’s Synod or the Scan- 
dinavian Augustana Synod. The latter was composed of Norwe- 
gians and Swedes, who, as we have seen, left the Northern Jilinois 
Synod in 1860.7? Clausen, however, was in no great hurry about 
joining either of these bodies, but remained outside of all synodical 
connections for approximately two years. He was joined by Rev. 
Botolf Botolfsen Gjeldaker, who came to America in 1870. 

But the Scandinavian Augustana Synod underwent changes that 
greatly affected the status of Clausen and Gjeldaker. On the prom- 
ise of a salary of one thousand dollars a year and free house, besides 
a year of study in Germany, the Scandinavian Augustana Synod suc- 
ceeded in inducing the promising young August Weenaas to come 
to Paxton to teach at “The Augustana College Seminary.” 7? Being a 


# Jacobs, op. cit., 52. * See above, 166. 
3 Hatlestad, Historiske M eddelelser, 76. See also above, I9I. 


234 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Norwegian patriot as well as a schoolman, Weenaas agitated for a 
separation from the Swedes. At Moline, Illinois, in 1869, the Scan- 
dinavian Augustana Synod very magnanimously voted that the Nor- 
wegians were at liberty to launch their own school, and arranged 
for an amicable adjustment of the property rights in “Augustana 
College Seminary.” Their share of the money thus made available, 
the Norwegians invested in a building at Marshall, Wisconsin, June 
29, 1869, whither the Norwegians at Paxton repaired in a body. As 
it was a very short step from independent school work to independent 
synodical work, the inevitable separation of the Norwegians from the 
Swedes took place the next year, 1870.” 

In the meantime, some differences in the Norwegian section of 
the Scandinavian Augustana Synod also appeared. Prof. Weenaas 
evidently wished to put into effect a stipulation written into the title 
to the Marshall property at its purchase, namely, that “a complete 
American Academy” be maintained in connection with the school." 
Prof. Weenaas evidently took this to mean that the academy had to 
be non-sectarian, at which Rev. O. J. Hatlestad and others balked.”° 
To add further to the impatience of Hatlestad and his group, Prof. 
Weenaas persisted in making overtures to Clausen, who, as a former 
member of the Norwegian Synod, had certain prejudices against the 
Augustanans, and insisted on making terms with the Augustanans 
instead of unconditionally subscribing to their creeds and constitu- 
tion. Clausen’s attitude merely tantalized Weenaas, who was more 
determined than ever to get Clausen into his camp, and was willing 
to leave no stone unturned to accomplish this purpose.?’ 

After the Norwegians had left the Swedes in 1870, the most 
natural thing for them to do was to organize themselves into a Nor- 
wegian-Danish Augustana Synod, just as the Swedes had organized 
into the Swedish Augustana Synod and which indeed the articles of 
separation stipulated that they should. But when the Norwegians 
came together to organize, Weenaas and those who wished to make 
place for Clausen and B. Gjeldaker in the new organization fore- 
stalled action on organization. The meeting contented itself with 
electing Rev. O. J. Hatlestad president, and Rev. J. Miiller Eggen sec- 
retary. Although Hatlestad and a committee had prepared a draft 
for a constitution, discussion of this was blocked, and, instead, the 
following resolution was passed: 


1. The Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod hereby declares 
itself to be organized. 

2. This synod accepts as unchangeable according to their con- 
tents the doctrinal articles proposed by the committee on constitution. 

3. It is delegated to a committee in conjunction with Rev. C. L. 
Clausen to decide on time and place for a conference between the 


“For acts of division see Hatlestad, op. cit., 64. 

7* See above, IQI. 

* Hatlestad, op. cit., 77. 

™ Koren, Samlede Skrifter, II, 129, and Hatlestad, op. cit. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 235 


synod and Rev. C. L. Clausen and the pastors connected with him; 
which meeting is to be publicly announced at least four weeks before 
it is held. Members of this committee are to be the Revs. Weenaas, 
Hatlestad, and Eggen. 

4. To perfect the proposed organization, it is necessary that 
there be agreement on the following points: 

a. That a committee of five be elected to constitute the synod’s 
temporary government and representation. 

b. This committee must propose to the conference a Synodical 
constitution. ‘This committee consists of the Revs. Amon Johnson, 
Hatlestad, Miller Eggen, and Messrs. H. Strand and G. Gabrielsen. 

c. As an inescapable condition for entering this church body it 
is deemed necessary that both sides agree on the principle that ques- 
tions of doctrine and conscience are to be settled only according 
to God’s Word and the Confessions of our Church; all other ques- 
tions, however, where nothing to the contrary is stipulated, are 
decided by majority vote. 

d. Concerning church rites and customs, it is hereby declared that 
the congregations have full right and freedom to arrange these 
things as they find it useful and most in accord with propriety and 
good order. 

e. For the sake of unity and order, the synod ought, by majority 
vote, to agree upon a certain liturgy, which is to be used at the 
synod’s conferences or other meetings.” 


After voting the Swedes thanks for friendly and loving com- 
panionship in years past, the meeting adjourned without taking action 
in regard to further organization. 

A conference was held between the tentatively organized Nor- 
wegian-Danish Augustana Synod and Rev. C. L. Clausen and Rev. 
B. Gjeldaker, at St. Ansgar, lowa, August 10, 1870.78 At this 
meeting were the following Augustanans: Prof. A. Weenaas, Revs. 
O. J. Hatlestad, Johan Olsen, J. C. Jacobson, O. Paulsen, David 
Lysnes, N. Olsen, J. J. Naessa, Falk Gjertsen, N. Vikre, O. Schel- 
dahl, P. Asbjornsen, M. P. Ruh, S. M. Krognes, J. Miller Eggen, 
and the delegates A. Tharaldsen, G. Gullikson, and M. Meland. 
Absent were Revs. A. Johnson, J. P. Gjertson, T. H. Dahl, T. H. 
Wald, N. C. Brun, and L. E. Green. The other parties to the con- 
ference were Rev. C. L. Clausen and Rev. B. Gjeldaker. 

Rev. C. L. Clausen was elected president and Rev. J. Muller 
Eggen secretary. After a few preliminaries, it was determined that 
reports be heard of a meeting held in February, 1869, between 
Clausen and the Norwegian section of the Augustana Synod. This 
brought up the question of doctrine, which was discussed from 
Wednesday until Friday, with the final result that both parties recog- 
nized each other as brethren in the faith. When the question of a 
constitution was brought up, Rev. O. J. Hatlestad produced his draft 
prepared for the Andover meeting. Since Clausen also had pre- 

* Bergh, op. cit., 205. 
* These acts are fully reported in J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 204 ff. 


236 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


pared a constitution, a deadlock ensued, and the matter was referred 
to a committee consisting of Revs. Hatlestad, Clausen, Olsen, Gjeld- 
aker, and Prof. Weenaas, besides the laymen Rustad, Meland, 
Syverson, Gullikson, and A. Tharaldsen. After due discussion the 
committee proposed to the conference that it be organized on the 
basis of Clausen’s constitution, with certain minor changes. They 
pledged their adherence to the Symbolical Books of the Norwegian 
and Danish Lutheran Churches, that is: the Apostolic, Nicene, and 
Athanastan Creeds; the Unaltered Augsburg Confession; and 
Luther’s Small Catechism. Hatlestad voted against this doctrinal 
basis as he wanted the whole Book of Concord rather than the Augs- 
burg Confession. He hoped to steer the new body into the General 
Council, for which the ex-Synod man, Clausen, held no particular 
brief. Ignoring Hatlestad’s objections, it was decided to unite on 
the basis proposed by the committee. At Clausen’s suggestion the 
name of the new organization became The Conference for the Nor- 
wegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, instead of 
the contemplated The Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod. Clausen 
had acquired an aversion for the latter name as a result of the con- 
troversies between the Augustana Synod and the Norwegian Synod, 
to which he had belonged. The name of the new Synod henceforth 
was usually given as merely The Conference. 

These resolutions naturally had to be ratified separately by both 
parties to the conference before they became binding. Accordingly 
the tentatively organized Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod had 
a meeting on August 15 at St. Ansgar in order to make final ar- 
rangements for entering the Conference. Rev. O. J. Hatlestad pre- 
sided, and Rev. J. Muller Eggen functioned as secretary. This con- 
vention decided to defer action until the conferences between the 
synod and Clausen and Gjeldaker were at an end, at which time they 
would reassemble. In accordance with this resolution, the Norwe- 
gian-Danish Augustana Synod again assembled on the afternoon of 
August 15. Since Hatlestad inauspiciously failed to appear, Rev. 
Johan Olsen was elected to preside in his place. At this meeting, 
a resolution was passed dissolving the Norwegian-Danish Augustana 
Synod, in order that its members might enter the proposed Confer- 
ence. Rev. O. J. Hatlestad had asked to have his protest against 
this action added to the minutes. 

The Conference then reassembled, and completed its organiza-. 
tion. Rev. C. L. Clausen was elected president, Rev. Johan Olsen 
vice president, Rev. J. Muller Eggen secretary, and Rev. O. Paulsen 
treasurer. On August 17 Prof. Weenaas was elected editor of the 
Norwegian-Danish organ, Lutheraneren, and also president of Augs- 
burg Seminary. His rights to both of the offices were to be dis- 
puted later, as we shall see. At its organization the Conference had 
eighteen pastors, to whom there were soon added seven more, mak- 
ing twenty-five in all. When the St. Ansgar meeting adjourned af- 
ter completing the organization of the Conference, it seemed as if 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 237 


the Norwegians had succeeded in launching their new synod with- 
out mishap. One might have expected the Conference to take over 
not only the legacy of the Norwegian group from the Scandinavian 
Augustana Synod, but also from Clausen’s and Gjeldaker’s group. 

But this early experiment at union was not to succeed quite so 
well as it at first promised. While the Norwegian-Danish Augus- 
tanans, under Weenaas’s leadership, had made concessions that had 
made a union with Clausen and Gjeldaker possible, there were other 
elements that looked askance at these union efforts. Rev. O. J. 
Hatlestad had bolted the meeting at St. Ansgar as the last steps 
were taken to weld the conferring elements into the Conference. 
Rey. O. Andrewsen and Rev. Andreas A. Scheie had from the very 
first refused to take part in the St. Ansgar meeting, and, of course, 
remained outside of the Conference. Since Rev. Paul Anderson, 
who for years had been very intimately associated with Andrewsen 
and Hatlestad, was out of the ministry from 1861 to 1876, on ac- 
count of bad health, he naturally took no part in the deliberations 
at St. Ansgar; nor was there any urgent reason why he should make 
known his wishes in the matter. Other men, as the Revs. S. M. 
Krogness, David Lysnes, and M. P. Ruh, had taken a rather per- 
functory part in the formation of the Conference at St. Ansgar, 
and their perfunctoriness was not changed into enthusiasm for the 
proposed Conference when Hatlestad, the president of the tempo- 
rarily organized Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod, left the 
convention at St. Ansgar in anger and disgust. Quite a price was 
thus paid for Clausen’s entry into the new organization, henceforth 
known as the Conference. | 

Rey. O. J. Hatlestad immediately raised the standard of revolt 
by refusing to acknowledge that the Norwegian-Danish Augustana 
Synod had been dissolved.*® In collusion with certain others, who 
were not satisfied with the St. Ansgar meeting, he promptly issued 
a call (on September 5) for a meeting of the Norwegian-Danish 
Augustana Synod to be held at Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin, on 
October 5, 1870. Three topics were to be discussed: (1) ‘The re- 
vised synodical constitution; (2) the school at Marshall, Wisconsin ; 
and (3) union with the General Council. Such other matters as 
would properly come before the meeting were also to be discussed. 

In answer to this call the following met: Rev. O. J. Hatlestad, 
president, Revs. S. M. Krogness, D. Lysnes, M. P. Ruh, O. An- 
‘ drewsen, and A. A. Scheie. The question was immediately raised as 
to whether the action at St. Ansgar which purported to have dis- 
solved the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod was valid. All 
present, of course, agreed that it was not valid. The St. Ansgar 
meeting was merely a free conference, they said, and a conference 
has no authority to dissolve the body that has brought it into being. 
Since neither the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod nor the 
congregations have had an opportunity properly to discuss the mat- 


° J. A. Bergh, op. cit., 214 ff. 


238 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


ter, not to speak of ratifying the action, the action is neither bind- 
ing nor in accord with decent procedure. Inasmuch as the congre- 
gations have not joined the Conference, the pastors who rushed 
headlong into the Conference at St. Ansgar violated the constitu- 
tion of their congregations, which provide that the pastor shall be- 
long to the same Lutheran synod as the congregation. 

With the St. Ansgar proceedings thus summarily pushed aside, 
the convention declared itself to be a continuation of the organiza- 
tion convention of the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod of June 
17, 1870. To make their present status absolutely clear to all con- 
cerned, delegate Gjeldstad offered the following resolution, which 
was unanimously accepted: 


When the synod now takes up this work, it feels constrained to 
declare that it regards the resolution passed by a few pastors and 
three delegates at St. Ansgar last August regarding the dissolution 
of the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod to be both in purpose 
and in reality merely loose talk, which before any tribunal would 
prove its own bane.” | 


The Convention thereupon took up the discussion of a constitu- 
tion prepared before the meeting by Rev. O. J. Hatlestad in con- 
sultation with some others; after a few minor changes had been 
made, this constitution was approved on October 12, 1870. It was 
decided that copies of this document should be sent to the congre- 
gations, whose privilege it was either to accept, reject, or offer 
amendments, provided the amendments were handed in at least two 
months before the next meeting. In view of the bitter experiences 
of the past, it was decided that, though this constitution was thus 
neither ratified nor put into final form, it should be regarded, never- 
theless, as being in force immediately. This act really marks the 
launching of the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod. 

As for the proposed union with the General Council, an Eastern 
Lutheran body, we may merely remark that in spite of Hatlestad’s 
best efforts the delegates voted against the proposition. Even Dr. 
Passavant’s presence at the meeting failed to convince the Norwe- 
gians that they should abandon their own standards and usages in 
order to become a part of this larger English Lutheran body. 

Reverting to routine matters, the Augustana Synod elected as its 
first officers Rev. O. J. Hatlestad, president, and Rev. S. M. Krog- 
ness, secretary. Although the Conference had at St. Ansgar al- 
ready elected Prof. Weenaas editor of Lutheraneren and president 
of the Marshall (Wisconsin) school, the Norwegian-Danish Augus- 
tanans contested these elections and elected Krogness as editor of 
Lutheraneren and Prof. I. Anderson as president of the Marshall 
school. As we have seen before, the Norwegian-Danish Augus- 
tanans succeeded in establishing their property rights to the Mar- 


" Ibid., 217. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 239 


shall school, but the students with one exception went with Prof. 
Weenaas into the Conference. As for Lutheraneren, Prof. Ween- 
aas succeeded in retaining its editorship against Krogness. It, 
therefore, went to the Conference. 

A controversy now naturally arose between the Augustanans and 
the Conference. The Augustanans maintained that the conference 
at St. Ansgar had no right to dissolve the Norwegian-Danish Augus- 
tana Synod; the Conference people replied that when the Norwegians 
left the Scandinavian Augustana Synod they did not have any cor- 
porate existence, hence were free to organize whenever and however 
they chose. The Andover articles were merely temporary, so when 
the Norwegians organized the Conference at St. Ansgar, they took 
the only permanent and final steps toward organization that this 
particular group had taken. NHatlestad, Krogness, Lysnes, and Ruh 
had, moreover, taken part in the St. Ansgar meeting. When Hatle- 
stad replied that the Norwegian-Danish section of the Augustana 
Synod had already existed eleven years by the time of the St. Ans- 
gar meeting, it was replied that the Norwegian-Danish section was 
a part of another synod with which relationships were broken in 
1870, leaving the Norwegians and Danes without either synodical 
connection or corporate existence. If the meeting at St. Ansgar 
was unconstitutional, why had Hatlestad presided? 

As could be expected, neither side would yield; consequently a 
very sharp controversy ensued, but this died down after a while. 

It was too much to be expected that other Lutheran bodies, such 
as the General Council and the Norwegian Synod, should refrain 
from freely expressing their opinions in regard to the chief points 
at issue, these bodies, in the main, agreeing with the Augustana 
Synod. The Norwegian Synod possibly played the “big brother’ 
to the Augustana Synod the more readily, seeing that Kev. C. L. 
Clausen, who had resigned from the Norwegian Synod in 1868, was 
the prime mover in the organization of the Conference at St. Ansgar. 
Rev. V. Koren of the Norwegian Synod somewhat later spoke of 
these transactions as “a strange coup détat at St. Ansgar in 
1870.” *? But even with the moral support of the General Coun- 
cil and the Norwegian Synod, the Augustana Synod was too badly 
crippled to hold its own against its much larger opponent, the Con- 
ference. 

Within the Conference there were some men of real ability. Be- 
sides Clausen, it had such men as Weenaas, Oftedal, and Sverdrup, 
the latter three being professors at Augsburg Seminary, Minneapo- 
lis, Minnesota. From their stronghold in Minnesota these men 
took up the gage of battle against the Norwegian Synod, whose doc- 
trines they gave the general name Wisconsinisme, because the Synod 
leaders lived in Wisconsin. Nothing essentially new was brought 
out by the opposition to the Synod during this controversy; on 
the other hand, many obsolete charges, as for instance of Grundt- 

* Koren, op. cit., II, 129. 


240 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


vigianism, were again brought forth. The high-water mark was 
possibly reached by Prof. Oftedal in his Aaben Erklaring (Open 
Declaration) of 1874, a document which the Synod pastors regarded 
to be so outrageous that they did not even deign to answer it. For- 
tunately, the date limit of this volume—1872—gives us a fine ex- 
cuse for dismissing this controversy at this stage, though it was des- 
tined to continue between these two bodies for a generation or two. 
Other questions were naturally introduced to aggravate the situa- 
tion. But even these apparently irreconcilable elements were united 
in IQI7. 

As for Eielsen’s Synod, it enjoyed a period of comparative rest 
from hostilities. The Ellingians disagreed with the Norwegian 
Synod leaders in regard to Absolution, and possibly also in regard 
to the Sunday question, but the Ellingians were not regarded as the 
chief party to any of the Norwegian Synod’s controversies at this 
time. Some hopes were entertained by the Scandinavian Augustan- 
ans that a union could be brought about with the Ellingians, and a 
meeting was held for that purpose in the latter part of September, 
1868, near Decorah, Iowa.** Rev. Osten Hanson of the Ellingians 
and Rev. E. Norelius of the Scandinavian Augustanans figured 
prominently in these deliberations. They took up Eielsen’s Old Con- 
stitutson for criticism and found it very faulty. But since the El- 
lingians admitted its faults, no difficulty was encountered on that 
point. The Scandinavian Augustana constitution was briefly, but 
ably, criticized by Rev. Osten Hanson, and here, too, the faults 
were freely admitted. After articles of agreement had been drawn 
up, Eielsen raised a moot question: What do the Augustanans think 
of “laymen’s activity’? Since Eielsen received no satisfactory an- 
swer, the meeting was adjourned without any further efforts at or- 
ganic union being made. The chief reason why Eielsen’s Synod was 
left in comparative peace was probably this, that it did not have suf- 
ficient strength, either theologically or numerically, to challenge 
either the Norwegian Synod or the Conference. 

In a general way we have now arrived at that event which had 
a profound influence not only on the Norwegian Synod, but on Nor- 
wegian American Lutheranism in general, namely, the Norwegian 
Synod’s entry in 1872 into the Synodical Conference, a loosely knit 
combination of German Lutheran synods with ‘Missouri’ as the 
leading factor. Only two other dates (1890 and 1917) in the later 
history of Norwegian American Lutheranism are fraught with such 
meaning. These events, however, belong to the second and third 
stages of the history of Norwegian American Lutheranism, not to 
the first, to which this study is restricted. 

In surveying the field in the memorable year 1872, we discover 
that Norwegian American Lutheranism has made substantial prog- 
ress along several lines. For its numerical strength we shall quote 


* K. Maanedstidende, 1868, 145. 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 241 


Dr. O. M. Norlie of Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, one of the 
foremost statisticians of the Lutheran Church: 


In 1872 there were in the Ellingian Synod 17 pastors, in Augustana 
8, in the Conference 36, and in the Norwegian Synod 74, a total of 
125. The Synod’s 74 pastors had 335 congregations with a total 
membership of 77,415 [in 1873], the Conference’s 36 pastors had 121 
congregations with a total membership of 16,409 in 1872. The 
Augustana and Ellingian pastors must have had 3-4 congregations 
each, that is, about 100 congregations in all, with a total membership 
of less than 10,000. At the beginning of this decade there were 150 
congregations, at the end of it 550, hence 400 new congregations 
were formed in Io years.” 


In 1872 there were three Norwegian Lutheran schools—Luther 
College, Augsburg Seminary, and the Marshall (Wisconsin) school, 
later called Augustana College. Eielsen’s group had no school at 
this time, as we have seen above, and in the absence of schools, 
Eielsen was forced to ordain some of his more gifted laymen. The 
Norwegian Synod also ordained quite a few capable laymen in or- 
der to supply the ever-increasing demand for ministers. The Synod 
also received a steady supply of pastors from St. Louis, to which the 
students from Luther College went to get their theological training. 
At the end of this period the Norwegian Synod led all the other 
Norwegian Lutheran bodies in number of pastors, in theological 
and practical leadership, and in membership. For about two de- 
cades it was to be regarded as the chief representative of Norwegian 
Lutheranism in America. How it lost this position of commanding 
leadership is intimately bound up with its association with the Synod- 
ical Conference in 1872. 

Our task is then really finished, but we owe it to our readers to 
leave a more favorable impression of Norwegian American Luther- 
anism than we have been able to give so far. We spoke of the con- 
troversies between the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod and the 
Conference. These lasted only twenty years, for in 1890 these 
warring synods became parties to the union which brought the 
United Norwegian Lutheran Church into existence. Augustana Col- 
lege and Augsburg Seminary both entered the union, but a conflict 
soon arose about Augsburg Seminary, with the result that “the 
friends of Augsburg,” under the leadership of Prof. Sven Oftedal 
and Prof. George Sverdrup, withdrew from the United Norwegian 
Lutheran Church and formed the Norwegian Lutheran Free Church. 
Since the Free Church, as it is commonly called, did not enter the 
union in 1917, Prof. Weenaas’s school, Augsburg Seminary, did not 
become a part of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America in 
1917, while Augustana College did. Each of the Marshall schools 
thus went its own way also in this instance. 

Care was taken at the beginning to show that these conflicts were 


*O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Prester i Amerika, 27. 


242 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


entirely inevitable. The Norwegians are intensely interested in re- 
ligion and their subsequent history amply proves that they have the 
mental vigor to grapple with some of its most profound aspects. 
They possess an extremely acute sense of mental sincerity; under 
no circumstances could they let error in statement or act go unchal- 
lenged for fear that they became parties to those errors by silent ac- 
quiescence. Besides this, there was ample opportunity for misun- 
derstanding among them. The average man, who had been thor- 
oughly conscious of his power in Norway, demanded that men and 
measures justify themselves before his august presence in “free” 
America. His native independence made various experiments pos- 
sible, and though all of these have not stood the test of time, it was 
perhaps just as well that these experiments were made. Local pride 
and local animosities between the various geographical sections from 
which the Norwegian immigrants came guaranteed at least some 
support to any cause that might come up, so long as it was different. 
All of these religious controversies, which were invariably carried on 
in dead earnest, gave opportunity for the development of a fine the- 
ological sense all along the line, the average layman studying very 
profound theological questions in order that he might give answer 
to those who gainsaid him. 

Now a word to the reader. Though he might not agree with all 
that the leaders of Norwegian American Lutheranism said and did, 
it is to be hoped that he has a fair idea of the various leaders and 
their views. Their shortcomings have not been toned down merely 
to win favor for them. On the other hand, it is to be hoped that 
these men, whose weakness and strength is brought out into the day, 
do not fail to excite that sympathy which we feel, for instance, for 
Bible characters whose very frailties make us feel kinship to them. 
An attempt has been made to write this history as it is, not as any 
one might desire it to be. The period that just now closes fails to 
show the large bearing ideas and principles underlying each one of 
these discussions, but a second volume would bring this out won- 
derfully. The author has been tempted to point these out, but he 
has realized that an intelligent understanding of them cannot be 
given in a few words. The reader in most instances stands just 
where the actors in this great human drama stood in 1872—before 
the closed curtain of the future. This much can be said, that in 
spite of all the discouragements and all the complications at the end 
of this period—1872—the story will eventually resolve itself into a 
most gratifyingly happy ending. After rain comes sunshine; these 
fierce storms which threatened the sturdy green tree only cleared 
away the dry limbs of prejudice and misunderstanding, 

We must not forget that nearly all that here has been told has 
taken place in a very short time. Rev. Elling Eielsen and Rev. C. 
L. Clausen were ordained in 1843; in 1846 the first synod was or- 
ganized, in 1853 the second. Controversies about slavery, “laymen’s 
activity,’ and the Sunday question were begun in about 1860 and 


DIVERGENT SYNODICAL ACTIVITY 243 


settled within that decade. Augsburg Seminary, Augustana College, 
and Luther College were founded during this same time, Red Wing 
Seminary a little later. In 1870 two more synods were formed— 
all of this within less than one generation. When one considers the 
great problems of pioneer life itself; the problems of pioneer church 
life; the problems of organization and constitutional development ; 
the problems of institutional development, including the founding of 
four colleges; the problems of expansion; the problems of a very 
acute theology—one must say that these pioneers showed an activ- 
ity, a courage, and a resourcefulness that is not easily matched in 
any group in America. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Introductory. A few definitions are necessary in this connection. 1. By 
bibliography I mean any written material in any form which I have used 
directly or indirectly in the preparation of this book. 2. By primary 
sources I mean first-hand accounts either by a contemporary or by one 
who has interviewed a contemporary. 3. By secondary sources I mean - 
second-hand contact with the facts; as, for instance, where authors have 
depended on other authors for facts and figures. In some cases it is 
extremely difficult to draw the line between primary and secondary 
sources. Some articles can properly be classed as both primary and 
secondary. 

In my attempt to reproduce not only the facts of the history of early 
Norwegian American Lutheranism, but also the very spirit of the times, 
I have been forced to go outside the realm of strictly historical literature 
in my quest of these subtle elements. This explains why certain books 
are listed that might seem out of place in a bibliography on serious 
history. 

I. Primary SOURCES 


Rynning, Ole, Sandfardig Beretning om Amerika til Oplysning og Nytte 
for Bonde og Menigmand, Christiania, Norway, 1838. Reprinted by 
R. B. Anderson, Madison, Wisconsin, 1896. Theo. C. Blegen has 
translated this work and published it in Minnesota History Bulletin, 
November, 1917. The Norwegian American Historical Association 
proposes to re-issue this book in the near future. 

Reierson, John R., Vewiser for Norske Emigranter til de forenede nord- 
amerikanske Stater og Texas, Christiania, Norway, 1844. Copies of 
this are found in libraries at Luther College, University of Illinois, 
and Minnesota Historical Society. 

Dietrichson, J. W. C. Reise blandt de Norske Emigranter 1 ‘de forenede 
nordamerikanske Fristater’, Stavanger, Norway, 1846. Reprinted 
by R. B. Anderson, Madison, Wisconsin, 1896. Copies of original 
edition found in Library of Congress and Luther College Library. 

Koren, Mrs. Elizabeth, Fra Pioneertiden. Uddrag av Fru Elizabeth 
Korens Dagbog og Breve fra Femtiaarene. Udgivet af hendes Born. 
Decorah, Iowa, 1914. 

Nattestad, Ole Kundson, Beskrivelse over en Reise til Nordamerika, 
Drammen, Norway, 1839. Translated by Prof. R. B. Anderson for 
Wisconsin Magazine of History, December, 1917, under title 
“Description of a Journey to North America.” 

Billed-Magazin, Svein Nilsson, editor, Madison, Wisconsin, 1868-70. 


245 


246 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


Among the primary sources must be listed also the many articles that 
appeared in the contemporary newspapers, reports from meetings, and 
various articles of that sort. I shall not give all the references to these 
in detail, for two reasons: 1. Adequate references have been given in 
the footnotes throughout the book. 2. Individual histories of all the 
minor articles read would make an imposing list, to be sure, but in some 
cases it would really amount to making an index of such sources as 
Maanedstidende, Kirkelig Maanedstidende, Nordlyset, etc. I shall, there- 
fore, simply list the newspapers and reports and refer to the footnotes 
for the hundreds of references made to these. 


Nordlyset, Muskego, Wisconsin, 1847-49. Files at Luther College quite 
complete. 

Maanedstidende, Racine and Inmansville (Luther Valley), Wisconsin, 
. 1851-53. Practically every article read for odds and ends of 


information. 
Kirkelig Maanedstidende, Inmansville (Luther Valley), Wisconsin, 
1855—. Successor to Maanedstidende. The years 1855-72 very care- 


fully scanned for possible information. 

Kirketidende for den Skandinavisk Evangelisk-Lutherske Kirke, Racine, 
Wisconsin, etc., 1851-54, edited and published by O. J. Hatlestad 
and others. Luther College has possibly as complete a file of this 
paper as can be found. 

Norsk Luthersk Kirketidende for den Evangelisk-Lutherske Kirke 14 
America, Leland, Illinois, etc., 1857—, published by O. Andrewsen, 
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Emigranten, Inmansville, Wisconsin, edited by the “Norwegian Pastors,” 
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Der Lutheraner, St. Louis, Missouri. Scanned for material for the years 
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Kirkelig Tidende, edited and published by P. A. Rasmussen, Lisbon, 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 


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Brandt, O. E., “Homiletics Notes.” Unpublished. 



































248 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


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1909. 

Jensson, J. C., American Lutheran Biographies, Milwaukee, 1890. 

Jervell, Hans, Nordmind og Norske Hjem 1 Amerika, samt Kurker, 
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Johnsen, E. Kr., J Kirke, Minneapolis, 1913. 














250 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


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IQII. 

—— De Kirkelige Partier blandt vort Folk i Amerika. Om Grunden 
til disse Partiers Opstaaen, om deres Udvikling, og hvad vi deraf 
kunne lare for vort kirkelige Arbeide. Decorah, 1878. Reprinted in 
Samlede Skrifter, Decorah, I1gII. 

Langeland, Knud, Nordmandene 1 Amerika. Nogle Optegnelser om 
Norskes Udvandring til Amerika (4th thousand), Chicago, 1889. 

Lenker, J. N., Lutherans in All Lands, Vols. I & II (4th ed., 7th thou- 
sand), Milwaukee, 1894. 

Larsen, Laur., “Vort Kirkeblad” in Halvorsen, Festskrift til Den Norske 
Synodes Jubilium, 1853-1903, Decorah, 1903. 

and Schmidt, F. A., Iméddegaaelse af Fakultetets Betinkning. Ved 
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Minneapolis, 1900. 

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 


Norelius, E., De Svenska Lutherska Forsamlingarnes og Svenskarnes Hi- 
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Norlie, O. M., Den Forenede Norsk Lutherske Kirke i Amerika, Minne- 
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Pederson, C. J. P., Hvad jeg oplevede under de 6 forste Aar af min 
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1893. 

Pontoppidan, E., Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (numberless editions). 

Collegium FPastorale Practicum,  Christianssand, Norway, 
1850. 

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Preus, H. A., Professorerne Oftedals og Weenaas’s ‘Wisconsinisme’ 
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252 NORWEGIAN AMERICAN LUTHERANISM UP TO 1872 


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Minneapolis, 1907. 

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its Chief Exponents, St. Paul, 1919. 

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Chicago, 1876. 

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Wick, Barthinius L., “Quakerism in Norway” in The Friend, Phila- 
delphia, 1894. 

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Amertkas Politik, Madison, 1889. 

editor, Decorah Posten, and Symra, Decorah, Iowa. 

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“Pressen efter Borgerkrigen in Festskrift, Decorah, I914. 

Several stories giving touches of Norwegian American life, as 
Nykommerbilleder, Hjemmet paa Prairien, Jonasville, Reisen til 
Rochester, etc., most of them published at Decorah, Iowa. 

Wolf, Edmund Jakob, Die Lutheraner in Amerika. Eine Geschichte thres 
Kampfes, Fortschrittes, Einflusses, und thre Staunenswerter Wachs- 
tum. Intro. by H. E. Jacobs, New York, 1891. 

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Ylvisaker, Niels Th., Om Absolutionen, Bergen, 1876. 

















INDEX 


Aabel, Rev. Oluf, 194, 195. 

Aaben Erklaring, 240. 

Aaby, 198. 

Aadland, Mons, 42, 93 n. 

Aadnesen, 108. 

Aae, Aslag, 39. 

Aaker, 108. 

Aaragerbo, Herman Osmundson, 39. 

Aaragerbo, Ole, 39. 

Aaron, 1306. 

Aaronitic Blessing, 86. 

Aaserod, Rev. Andreas, 186, 187. 

we. C. Book, 106, 140. 

Abolition, 204-207, 21I, 215, 210. 

Abraham, 152, 202. 

Absolution, 101, 104, 107, II0, 150, 
156, 198, 227-233, 240. 

Absolve, 87, 178. 

Academic Christianity, 16. 

Academy, 190-192, 234. 

Acts, official, 131. 

Acts in the Slavery Controversy, 213, 
2i4; 217. 

Adult, 87. 

Advent, 86. 

Adventist, 32. 

Adventists, 223, 224. 

Aegir, 34, 43. 

Aeroe, Denmark, 57. 

Africa, 57, 58, 196. 

Aftensang, 85. 

Agnostic, 6, 30, 34. 

Agnosticism, 35. 

Ague, 46, 53. 

Allen, William, 24, 27. 

Allamakee county, Iowa, 128. 

“Almindelig,” 147, 149, 151, I6I. 

Altar, 85, 86, 87, 88. 

Altar Book, 76, 77, I10. 

Ambassador, 228. 

America, I, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 29- 
31, 33-36, 39, 42, 44, 48, 49, 51, 
52, 55, 57, 58, 60, 64-69, 72, 74-76, 
89, 91-93, 95, 98, 100, IOI, 105, 112- 
Tide lit Lage lau, shoe 130, idea At 
160, 166, 173, 181-184, 186, 187, I9I- 
TOs e100. 107). 200, 217, ee eres, 
vee 

“America Fever,” 34, 44. 


PMCNCLICAL 5, EZ, LG ialy esha 2057 555 
57;/72, 75) 7% 89, 91,.02,, 120, 166, 
182, IQI, 203, 206, 220. 

“American,” 104. 

“American academy,” 234. 

“Americanize,” 89, 95, IOI. 

“American Lutheranism,” 191. 

Amlund, Rev. Nils, 154, 168, 174, 179. 

Amt, 2n. 

Amundson, Capt. Roald, 22. 

“And now we must bid one another 
farewell Wwe Dy aeWvirg. oo) sViaTthay ee. 
Clausen, 60. 

Anderson, Bjorn, 34. 

Anderson, Rev. I., 238. 

Anderson, Rev. Paul, 74, 84, 94-96, 
99-104, III, 134, 164-166, 185, 190, 
rh phe CAVE 

Anderson, Prof. R. B., 18, 21, 22, 24, 
26, 30, 34, 35, 53, 79. 

Andover, Illinois, 191, 192, 235, 239. 

Andover articles, 230. 

Andrewsen, Rey. Ole, 74, 95-102, 104, 
125, 142, 143, 154, 164, 166, 191, 
592, 237, 

Angel, 177. 

Anne Helena (Hauge’s ship), 13. 

ATIC S71. 

Annual meeting, 97, 99, I15. 

Antipathy against clergy, 37, 46, 48- 
SO OL Ose O7, 

Anti-clerical, 42, 48, 50, 54. 

Anti-Ellingianism, 179. 

Anti-Grundtvigian, 148. 

Anti-Grundtvigianism, 17, I19, 122. 

Anti-“Missourian,” 148. 

Anti-thesis, 171. 

Anti-Wexelsians, 147. 

Apollos, 168, 175. 

Apostle, 108, 110, 171, 176, 177, 203, 
205, 219. 

Apostolic, 68, 70, 86, 94, 107. 

Apostolic Creed (also Apostolic Ar- 
ticles of Faith), 86, 94, 129, 133, 
144, 145, 147, 156, 158, 236. 

Arian controversy, 147. 

Aristocracy, 208. 

Aristocrat, 65, 67, 74. 

Aristocratic, 59, 74, 92, 95, 208. 


253 


254 


Aristocratic families, 61, 65, 74. 

Arndt’s, John, postil, True Christian- 
ity, 8, 105, 143, 186. 

Arsenal, 136. 

Article VII of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, 110, 144, 156, 160. 

Article XI of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, III. 

Article XII of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, III. 

Article XIV of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, ‘al ooh 162, 164, 169, 170, 
170, 276,02 

Article eats “Ot the Augsburg Con- 
fession, 233. 

Article XXVIII of the 
Confession, 224. 

Asa faith, 22. 

Asbjornson, Peder (Mehus), 39, 235. 

Athanasian Creed, 129, 236. 

Atlantic, 30. 

WrEtlesty (A 5) 0132, 

Augsburg, 129. 

Augsburg Confession, 12, 96, 101, 107, 
100, 11124 Nw 273120, 0147, 1150) 1 LOO, 
Mag. 224, 230, 

Augsburg Publishing House, 78n. 
Augsburg Seminary, I9I, 193, 236, 
BAT V2Aq ; 
Augustana (Augsburg Confession), 

IOI. 

Augustana College, 234, 241, 243. 

Augustana College and Normal 
School, 192. 

Augustana Seminary, 167, IQI. 

Augustana Synod, (Norwegian-Dan- 
ish), 192, 235, 230, 241. 

Augustana Synod (Scandinavian), 
39, 167, 197, 222, 232, 234, 239, 240. 


Augsburg 


Augustana Synod (The Swedish), 
AS) Go 2 

Augustanans (Norwegian-Danish), 
238. 

Augustanans (Scandinavian), 168, 


I71I, 184, 185, 192, 207, 231, 
235, 239. 

Augustine, 178. 

Authority, 134, 144, 172, 173, 202, 204, 
209, 210, 212, 225. 

Autocratic, 92. 

“Awakened,” 109, I7I, 197. 

Awakening, 5, II, 16, 92, 120, 
17i, 190: 

AXA 


234, 


123, 


Babcock, Dr. Chas. Kendrick, 3, 4 
Backbiting, 132. 

Bakke, Soren, 47, 48, 57, 58, 79. 
Bakke, Tollef, 57, 65, 71, 70, 221. 


INDEX 


Balder, Hans, 37. 

Ballestad (Jacobsen), Jacob Daniel- 
sen, 195 n. 

Baltimore, I99. 

Bon nil: 

Bang, Bishop A. Gat 7, Oseiee 

Baptism (baptised), 40, 54, 73, 81 n, 
87, 96, TOE, 103). 110, TIZ MII Spei oy 
147, 149, 150, 160, 178, 228. 

Baptism, emergency, 47, 133. 

Baptismal covenant, 109, 138. 

“Baptismal covenant and,” 6, 114, 119, 
T2021: 

Baptismal records, 47. 

Baptist, 32, 37. 

Baptists, 36, 37. 

Baptists, close communion, 37. 

Barclay’s Apology, 24. 

Bargain lots, 78. 

Barn (See also Heg’s barn), 47, 48, 
58, 79. 

“Baron, © °02. 

Bastholm, Os § Wb 

Battlefield, 182. 

Beaver Creek, Iroquois county, Illi- 
nois, 41, 45. 

“Beggary,’ 88. 

Belial, 163. 

“Believe” the Church, 149. 

“Believe in” the Church, 149, 159. 

Bell, 80, 86. 

Beloit, Lyon county, Iowa, Ig2. 

Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, 95, 
96, 99, 101, 185. 

Benevolent rule—‘“‘despotism,” 59, 70. 

Bergen, Norway, 7, 10, 34, 39, 93. 

Bergh, Rev... J. A., 80, 07; 106) T17, 

Berries, 53. 

Beskrivelse over en Reise till Nord- 
amertka, by Ole Nattestad, 43. 

Bible, 6, 8, 10, I1, 32, 35, 87, 90, 120, 
123, 143, 177, 203-205, 209, 215, 223, 
224. 

Bible History, 6. 

Bible Society (American), 39. 


G7. 


Big Canoe congregation, Locust, 
Iowa, 181, 204, 207, 220. 
Birds, 53. 


Bishop, 59, 64, 67, 93, 94, 113, 163, 
ITO 4177 az2 ee: 

Bishops’ attitude to rationalism, 7-11. 

Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 4, 44, 55. 

“Blind” Christianity, 609. 

Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, 94. 

Boston, 33. 

Board. 13r 1340133) 

Bonder, 4, 15, 16, 33, 50. 

Bonder—Haugean, 51. 

Bond-servant, 203, 205, 212, 215, 2109. 


INDEX 


Bonde, 50, 184. 

Bonnet Prairie, Wisconsin, 75, 116. 

Book Mission, 83 n. 

Book of Concord, 127, 236. 

Books, 83, 122, 123, 133, 139, 140, 143, 
144, 187. 

Bothne, Prof. Thrond, 65. 

Boyum, FE. A., 154. 

Bradford, William, the Norwegian- 
American, Ao: 

Brakestad, John, 30. 

Brandt, Rev. Nils, 117, 119, 121, 123, 
129, 159, 161, 174, 182, 194, 200. 

Bread, 163. 

Bredtvedt, 13, 41. 

British Channel, 20. 

Brock, Jorgine, 65. 

Brodahl, Rev. P. M., 150, 174, 180. 

Brohaugh, Rev. Chr., 189, Igo. 

Brohaugh, Chr., and Eistensen, L., 
joint authors of Elling Eielsens Liv 
og Virksomhed, 95, 106. 

Brohm, Rev. Th. J., 203, 227. 

Brorson’s hymns, 8. 

Brun, Bishop Johan Nordahl, 7, 10, 
12, 

Brun, Rev. N. C., 235. 

Buffalo, New York, 66, 148, 194. 

Buffalo Synod (Lutheran), Buffalo, 
New York, 148, 194. 

Bugge, Fr. Wilhelm, 221. 

Bureaucratic, 25. 

Burial, 55, 60, 73. 

Burial, Quaker, 40. 

“Business meeting,” 88. 

By-laws, 115, 122, 126, 202. 


Call, 58-61, 64, 66-68, 70, 71, 74, 76, 
Fay LONI 1124)1120,"133,°150, 
156, 169, 171, 177, 178, 192, 194, 195, 
204. 

Campbellite, ee 

Camping utensils, 74. 

Candidate of theology (See also The- 
ological candidate), 64, 66, 70, 114, 
116, 128, 158, 186, 193, 195. 

Canonical books, 76, 129. 

Canton, South Dakota, 192. 


Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, 
120.4 T20h1103. 

Canuteson, Ole, 31. 

Carey, William, 56. 

(ated; 20,30. 

Carl XV, King of Sweden-Norway, 
167. 


Caroline Amalie, Princess, 41. 
Gasparn *Prof, Carl Paul, :17;)56,7 65, 
92, 144, 148, 162, 185, 195, 197. 


255 


Caiechism (See also Luther’s Small 
Catechism), 6, 82n, 108, 127, 129, 
140, 149, 227. 

Catechumen, 178. 

Cathedral, 190. 

Cathedral school, 195. 

Catholic, 32, 96, 104, 149. 

“Catholica,” 161. 

Cattle offerings, 199. 

Ceremonies, 76. 

Cephas, 175. 

Chairman, I14, 130. 

Chancel, 86, 

Chant, 86. 

Chaplain, 212. 

Charges against Eielsen, 100. 

Charles Augustus, 4. 

Charles V, Emperor, 129. 

Cheating, 132. 

Chicago, 33, 37, 42, 45, 84, 94, 96, 101, 
124, 126, 167, 168, 188, 189, 191, 218, 
210. 

Chicago fire, 189. 

Chicago theses (on Slavery), 219. 

Children, 123. 

Chiliasm, 221. 

Chiliastic, 197. 

Choir director, 81. 

Cholera, 46. 

Christ, see Jesus Christ. 

Christian, 32, 58, 74, 83, 89, 91, 95, 
LOU RLOSM LOZ RICO Lia it ty el oo eed 1 
154, 161, 168, 170, 175, 182, 186, 180, 
197, 1990, 204-206, 210, 215-217, 219, 
224-226. 

Christian IV, King of Denmark- 
Norway, 22. 

Christian, Prince, 41. 

“Christian church,” 149, 160. 

Christian liberty, 224, 225. 

Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, 7, 
13, 64, 66, 71, 93, 119, 191, 196, 210, 
OY sunt 7 vate, 

Christiania University (See also 
Royal Frederik University, and 
University of Christiania), 16, 56, 
58, 92, 93, 114, 125, 127, 128, 183, 
184, I9I, 195, 197, 208, 210, 217, 221. 

Christianity; 22).74,\131, 151,105, 1204, 
24) RO Way 

Christians, 39, 123, 146, 150, 156, 169, 
172, 175, 176, 178, 207, 223, 224, 225, 
wa0iae7. 

Christianssand, 7, 195. 

Christmas,.23, 73,1120: 

Church, The, 5, 55, 58, 65, 70, 82, 83, 
89, 92, 94, 97, IOI, 103, 104, 106, 107, 
Bis pitO1lo. (120, -I2T. 122 \iadaTos: 
127-134, 138-141, 144, 146, 147, 148, 


256 


150, 152, 153, 155-161, 164, 173-175, 
177, 180-183, 190, 193, 194, 196, 197, 
199, 210, 217, 221, 223, 226-228, 235, 


236. 

Church (building—See also House of 
God), 61, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 
88, 94, 148. 

Church and State, 49, 125, 207. 

Church Council, 129, 130-133, 
158, 194, 214, 217. 

Church discipline, 101, 102, 106, 126, 
132. 

Church government, 69, I15, 124, 126, 
130, VISR ator, 

Churching of mothers, 73. 

Churchliness, 59, 62, 64, nis, 134, 153, 


146, 


154. 

Churchly, 60, 70, 80. 

“Churchly view” or “Churchly con- 
ception,’ 113, 122, 145. 

Churchman, 50, 102, 155, I90. 

Churchmanship, 61, 190. 

Church of Norway, see State Church 
of Norway. 

Church of the True Religion, The, 
115. 

Church order, 48, 51, 65, 66, 60, 72, 
76, 80, 83, 8s, S7UTO7ur Ee 126, 130, 
IBF Tass) 

Church Ritual of Denmark and Nor- 
way—See Ritual of the Church of 
Denmark and Norway. 

Church Union, see Union. 

Circumcision, 202. 

Civil War, 47, 199, 210, 214, 217, 223. 

Class, 184, 185. 

Clausen, Claus Lauritz, 48, 50, 54, 56- 
66, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 79, 80, 87, 93, 
94, 103, 105, 113-118, 120, 121-123, 
125, 129, 138, 139, 145, 152, 160, 169, 
173, 174, 180, 181, 184, 192, 198, 205- 
200/212 2983. 217 aan eel ed, 225, 
226, 230, 233-237, 239, 242. 

Clausen, Rev. F. C., 182. 

Clausen, Mrs. Martha F., 57, 60, 64. 

Clavis errans (claves errantes), 227, 
229, 230. 

Cleavage between church parties in 
America, 40. 

Cleavage between classes, 14, 16, 184. 

Clergy (clerical class, clergyman), 51, 
52, 55, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 75, 
OL, 104, IT2-114)\ 121, 120,,141, 171, 
181, 184, 208. 

Clerical office, 121. 

Clermont, Iowa, 128. 

Clinton, Rock county, Wisconsin, 167. 

Collar, 85. 

Collect for the Day, 86. 


INDEX 


Collect for the Word, 86. 

Collection of money, 87, 88 

College site, 199. 

College work, 127. 

Colorado, 96. 

Colporteur, 309. 

Columbia county, Wisconsin, 76, 77. 

Columbus, Ohio, 22, 126, 193. 

Columbus University, see 
University. 

Command, 132, 224. 

Commission, 160. 

Committee, II9, 120, 123, 120. 

Common School, 122. 

Commune, 87. 

Communicants, 87. 

Communion (See also Lord’s Sup- 
PSP) 87 Hiss Oy AED 


Capital 


Communion of saints, 147, 150, 155, 
159. 

Complaint, 133. 

Complainant, 133. 

Concordia College, St. Louis, Mo., 


195, 197, 204. 

“Conditioned” classes, 59, 65, 67, 184, 
185, 208. 

Conduct, 156, 162. 

Conference, The Norwegian-Danish 
(The Conference for the Norwe- 
gian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran 
Church of America), 39, 192, 193, 
226, 236-241. 

Conference (Pastoral), 210, 212, 213, 
218, 230, 234-237, 239. 

Confessant, 227, 232. 

Confession (See also Retraction), 227. 

Confessional, 87, 191. 

Confessional works or writings, 76, 


77, 104, 166. 

Confessions, 103, 104, II0, 120, 122, 
143, 145, 146, 164, 176, 181, 208, 
Py ic) 


Confessor, 227. 

Confirmant, 40, 45. 

Confirmation, 6, 45, 65, 73, 83, IIS, 
126, 133. 

Congregation, 69-78, 80, 86, 96, 102, 
107, 110, FI2, 1¥4, 117, 120,124. 125) 
128-132, 141, 150, 159, 169, 172, 173, 
176, 177, 180, 181, 194, 196, 198, 199, 
213, 215, 220, 235, 238. 

“Congregation” at Muskego, 60, 61, 


79. 

Congregational (i.e., of the congrega- 
tion), 73, 75, 77, 81, 88, 100, 110, 
ey 

Congregationalist, 32. 

Consecrated, 54, 60. 

Consecration, 59, 67, 70, 71. 


INDEX 


Conservative, 104. 

Conscience, 212, 220, 227, 235. 

Constantinople, 21. 

Constitution, 75, 77, 89, 97-100, 106, 
Tz A110) i113, (ELS. (Lis, /1t0n bat, 
122-124, 1260, I2Q-13I, 134, 143-145, 
158, 160, 190, 234-238, 240. 

Constitutional, 74. 

Constitution, Eielsen’s, see Old Con- 
stitution. 

Constitution of Eidsvold, see Eids- 
vold constitution. 

Constitution of the United States, 
124n, 210. 

Controversy, I51-153, 155, 164, 178, 
182, 192, 196, 197, 210, 233, 239, 240, 
242. 

Conventicle Act of 1741 (against lay 
preaching), 6, 12, 13, 15. 

Convention, I13, 114, 118, I19, 122, 
10, 211. 

Conversion, 87, 92, 94, 107, I16, 133, 
156, 176, 197. 

Conversion after death, 116, 122, 133, 
144, 145, 152, 160, 165. 

Converted, 155, 156, 162, 176. 

Copenhagen University, 6, 8, 22. 

Corinth, 175. 

Correspondence, 124, 131. 

Court, 84. 

Craemer, Prof. F. A., 150; 161; 168, 
171-173, 212. 

Credentials, 113, 114, 130. 

Creed (See also Apostolic Creed), 86, 
94, 120, 133, 144, 147, 180. 

Crete, 176. 

Crisis, 192. 

Cure of souls, 55, 132. 

Cateing, )123, | 132. 


Dank) Rev. TSH., 235: 

Dakota, 44. 

Dance, 40, 116, 123. 

Dane, 230. 

Dane county, 66, 76, 77. 

Danish, 14, 31, 65, 235, 236. 

Dano-Prussian difficulties, 193. 

Deaconess, 81. 

Deacons, “elders,” or pastor’s assist- 
ants, 79, 73; 70, 81, 109, 130, 131, 
PORE 

“Dead” orthodoxy, 40, 49. 

Declaration, 101, 174, 206. 

Decorah, Iowa, 196, 198, 199, 209, 210, 
212, 214, 215, 240. 

Dedication, 150. 

Deerfield, Wisconsin, 186, 188. 

Defendant, 133. 


257 


Delegates, 113, 114, 118, 129-131, 193, 
BOG S211) 236/r 

Delegation, 115. 

Demagogue, 202. 

Democratic, 137. 

Demokraten, 137, 139, 140. 

Den, 147, 149, 160, 

Denmark, 4, 9, 15, 17, 41, 57, 64, 92, 
130, 132; 165) 182) 

Department of Church and Educa- 
tion, 26, 158. 

Departure of emigrant, 19, 45, 52. 

Devotional books and literature, 6, 9, 
10, 53. 

Devotional meetings, 123. 

Devotions, 123. 

Dietrichson, Captain, 25, 65. 

Dietrichson, Rev. G. F., 117, 119, 120, 
129, 139, 140, 159. 

Dietrichson, Rev. J. W. C., 24, 25, 50, 
60, 64, 65, 77, 80, 83-85, 80, 91-94, 
96, 100, 104, 106, II2-I119, 134, 138, 
145, 160, 182, 221. 

Discipline, 83, 107,.. 122, 123)) 134. 

Disobedience, 132. 

Dissent, 24, 34, 188. 

District, 134. 

Doctrine, 80, 87, 94-96, 104, 108, II0, 
LIS LLG a TL aaO, rican t 20 127, 
129-131, 134, 138, 144-147, 149, 150, 
153, 154, 156, 158, 160-162, 165, 166, 
173; 17712045) 100) 20G;e tO sn ait, 
213, 216, 219-221, 223-225, 230, 231, 
235, 230. 

Doctrine of the church, 94, 152, 160. 

“Doctrines of devils,’ 224. 

Document, 96. 

Dodgeville, Wisconsin, 94. 

Dogs, 231. 

Donatism, 68. 

Donatistic, 110, 149, 150, 153. 

Drammen, Norway, 43, 57, 65, 79. 

Drinking, 123. 

Drunkenness, 40, 83, 84, 90, 132. 

Duborg, Rev. H. P., 181, 198, 210, 212. 

Dubuque, Iowa, 213. 

“Dugout,” 47, 53, 79. 

Dutch) 2324. 

Duus, Rev. O. F., 159, 180. 


East, 33: 

East Koshkonong, 70, 80, 129, 134. 

Easter, 73, 186. 

Eastern District, 85, 127. 

Editor, 136, 137, 196, 202-204, 225, 
236, 238. 

Educate, 123, 187. 

Educated, 96, 154, 187, 188. 


258 


Education, 6, 57, 71, 83, 108, 109, 122, 
125, 184-187, 189, 190, 201. 

Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 195. 

Effect of Absolution, 232. 

Eggen, Rev. J. Miller, 234-236. 

Egypt, 225. 

Eide, Knud Olson, 27, 20. 

Eidsvold, 15. 

Eidsvold, Constitution of, 5, 15, 40. 

Eielsen, Rev. Elling (Sunve), 34, 39, 
41, 47-51, 56, 60, 62, 67, 74, 79, 82, 
84, 85, 89-92, 94, 90-103, 105, 106, 
III, 115, 125, 126, 134, 142-150, I5I- 
157, 161, 165, 179, 180, 185-190, 240- 


242. 

Eielsen, Mrs. Elling, roo. 

Eielsen’s “Friends,” 97, 190. 

Eielson’s ordination, motion to ‘“con- 
firm,” ) 116. 

Eielsen’s Synod, 97, 111, 126, 148, 153- 
155, 180, 183, 185-188, 190, 207, 222, 
232233,) 2404241, 

Eiric, the Red, 21, 22. 

Eirik Upse, 22. 

Eiriksson, Leiv, 21. 

Fisteinsen, Rev. I., 190. 

Eisteinsen and Brohaugh, 146. 

“Elders,” deacons, and pastor’s assist- 
ANUS 57 OA Se Oe OTs LOGS LGO, ai gLs 
176, 177. 

Elementary Christian Education, 109, 
12205314132) 

Ellefsen, Erik, 115, 204, 205, 207, 200- 
ZEIT 220; 

Ellertsen, H. J., Wind Lake, Wiscon- 
sin, 70. 

Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed, 
by Brohaugh and Eisteinsen, 95. 
Ellingian, 70, 116, 125, 147-149, I5I, 
152, 155, 156, 163, 165, 184-186, 188, 

190, 240. 

Eloquence, 136. 

Emergency acts, 47, 54, 133. 

Emergency priesthood, 174, 178. 

Emigranten, 139-142, 152, 193, 108, 
202, 203, 206, 209, 218. 

Pee 34, 45, 51, 52, 65, 66, 92, 
18I. 


Pah 31, 44-46, 64, 66, 74, 105, 

18s. 

Emigration, 3, 18, 19, 20, 41, 44, 45, 
52, 55, 64, 75, 92, 93, 221. 

Emotional, emotionalism, etc., 173. 

Empie, Rev. Mr., Sharon, Wisconsin, 
IOI. 

En, 147, 149, 160. 

England, 21, 40. 

English, 24, 29, 56, 96, 106, 122, 136, 
186, 190, 238. 


INDEX 


English blockade, 11, 24. 

English Prologue, 164. 

Enigheden (the Unity), 34. 
Enochsen, Enoch, 24. 

Ephraim, Utah, 31. 

Episcopal, 72. 

Episcopalian, 86. 

Epistle for the Day, 86. 
Ericksson, see Erriksson. 

Erik, see Eirik. 

Esbjorn, Rev. L. P., 104, 167, 191. 
Essence of Absolution, 232. 
Estates, 183, 184, 205, 2106. 
Ethics, 71. 

Europe, 126. 
Evangelical-Christian Hymnal, 8. 
“Evangelical Lutheran church,’ 97, 


99. 

Evangelical Lutheran Church of 
America, 97, 100, III, I15, 134. 

Evangelical Lutheran Church on Jef- 
ferson Prairie, etc., in North Amer- 
1Cay-00; 107; 

Evangelisk Luthersk Kuirketidende, 
138. 

Evangelist, 177. 

Evensen, John, 194. 

Evil, 205, 207, 200, 210. 

Examination, 58, 67, 68, 70. 

Examine, 129, 133. 

Excommunicate, 83, 132. 

Exploration, 21, 22. 

External call, 150, 164. 

Eye, 182. 


Faculty, 198, 199. 

i bait osiiare, e732 

Faith, 161, 176-178, 196, 199, 227-233, 
235. 

Family devotions, 123. 

Farmer, 189. 

Fatalism, 8. 

Fathers, 194. 

Fayette county, Iowa, 128. 

Feelings, 170. 

Festival, 85. 

Fever, 46, 53. 

Few Words to the Norwegian 
Church, A, by Schreuder, 56, 183. 

Fifteenth Wisconsin Regiment, 47. 

Financial reasons for emigration, 18, 
19, 46. 

First Amendment to American Con- 
stitution, 124 n. 

Fist fighting and brawling, 40, 84, 90. 

Fjeld, Rev. John N., 154, 168, 170, 
171, 173, 174, 179, 205. 

Fleischer, K., 140. 

Flom, Dr. George T., 18. 


INDEX 


Flowers, 53. 

Foélgende vigtige Sporgsmaal, 165. 

Font, 87. 

Food offerings, 199. 

“Foreign,” 84, 89, 90. 

Foreign missions, 56, 57, 183-185, 196. 

Forgiveness of sins, 227-233. 

Forklaring over Fadervor, by Rose- 
nius, 143. 

Form of doctrine, 230. 

Formal, formalistic, formalism, for- 
mality, 170, 190, I9QI. 

Formula, 160. 

Forsanger, 70, 72, 80, 81, 82, 86, 87, 92. 

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 105, 153, 194. 

Fosse, Rev. Lars S., 195. 

“Fourth,” 93. 

Fourth Commandment, 215, 218, 226. 

Fox River, 34-39, 41, 42, 45-51, 54, 56. 

Fox River Settlement, 30, 33, 34, 38. 

Fox River Settlers (Fox Riverites), 
35, 50. 

Fox skin, 23. 

France, 4,21: 

Francke, August Herman, 5, 149. 

Franckean Synod (Franckean Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Synod of New 
York), 96, 100-104, 106, 134, 142. 

Franklin, Tennessee, 309. 

Fredrikstad, Norway, 65. 

“Free” America, 50, 64, 88, 242. 

Free Church, see Norwegian Lu- 
theran Free Church. 

ubtec: chutch, 73: 

“Free” country, 52. 

“Free’ form of worship, 50, 103, 116. 

“Free” Gospel, 190. 

Freedom, 205, 217, 219. 

Freethinker, 29, 31, 36. 

Freethinking, 210. 

Frelsens Olie, 143. 

French, 24, 195. 

French King, 27, 409. 

Prich une. J vib. 220, 

Friend, The, 24. 

Friends (See Quakers), 25, 26, 35. 

“Friends,’ Eielsen’s, 97, 105. 

Funchal, Madeira Islands, 29. 

Fundamentals, Lutheran-Christian, 57, 
66, 94, 131, 138, 166. 

Funeral (See also Burial), 55, 60, 73, 
150. 

Firbringer, Rev. L., 158. 


Gabrielsen, G., 235. 

Galileans, 108. 

Gambling, 123. 

Garb, ministerial, 85, 107, 150, 156. 
Garments, 187. 


259 


General Council (Lutheran), 236-239. 

General Prayer, 86. 

General Synod (Lutheran), 72, 102, 
104, 164-167, IQI. 

Geographic factors, 2, 3, 8. 

German, 32, 40, 66, 149, 155, 158, 159, 
162, 163, 165, 166, 187, 193, 195-197. 

German Lutheran Synod (at Milwau- 
kee), 58. 

German-Reformed Church, 127. 

Germany, 165, 233. 

Gestures, 187. 

Gjeldaker, Rev. B., 192, 233-235, 237. 

Gjeldstad, M., 238. 

Gjenmale, Clausen’s, 213. 

Gjenmdle, Koren’s, 210. 

Gjerpen, 93, I14. 

Gjerset, Dr. Knut, 14. 

Gjertsen, Rev. Falk, 235. 

Gjertsen, Rev. J. P., 235. 

ae into the General Synod, 164, 
167. 

God (Lord), 8, 11, 53, 60, 76, 77, 85, 
87, 88, 90, 103, I07-I10, I4I, 145, 
146, 152, 156, 163, 164, 168-172, 175- 
178, 188, 193, 194, 200, 202, 205, 206, 
209, 212, 214-217, 219, 220, 224, 226- 
23062321233: 

Godmother, 87. 

God’s Word, see Word of God. 

Golden Rule, 109, 205. 

Gospel, 54, 74, 77, 79, 86, 90, 91, 108, 
144, 147, 175, 176, 197, 203, 227-233. 

Gothenborg (Sweden), 33. 

Gottenborg, Mr., 18, 109. 

Government, 21, 84, 86, 203, 212, 217, 
220.4235. 

Governor, 203. 

Gown, Clerical, 85, 150, 156. 

Grabau, Rev. J. A. A., 66. 

Grace, 133. 

Grand Old Man, 195. 

‘Great: massa Loe 4, 00,8120, 1 LA7, 
240. 

Greek, 161, 203, 212. 

Green, Rev. L. E., 235. 

Green Bay, Wisconsin, 93. 

Greenland, 21, 22. 

Grellet, Stephen, 24, 27, 29, 49. 

Grundtvig, Rev. N. F. S., 65, 141. 

Grundtvigian, 16, 57, 65, 67, 92, 94, 
105, I10, 112-114, 118, 120, 122, 143- 
146, 148, 160, 161, 165, 197. 

Grundtvigianism, 16, 65, 77, 92, I19, 
143, 144, 147, 160, 167, 197. 

Grundtvigians, 156, 164. 

Guericke’s History, 147. 

Guldberg’s Psalmebok, 140, 142. 

Gullikson, G., 235. 


260 


Gutwasser, Rev. John Ernest, 23. 
“Gymnasium,” 197. 


Hagerup, EE HORE Dr. Eiler, 7. 

Hagestad, Rev. O. J. E., 201. 

Halfway Creek, La Crosse county, 
Wisconsin, 199. 

Hall, Rev. Lemuel, 185. 

Halvorsen, Rev. H., 120, 134. 

Halvorsen, Knud, 26, 

Hamburg, 33. 

Hamilton, Wisconsin, 45, 64, 71, 128. 

Hansen, iN 58. 

Hanson, dancing master, 66. 

Hanson, Bishop Dr. Peder, Awl 2, 

Hanson, Ole (‘‘Konsulen’”), 37. 

Hanson, Rev. Osten, 154, 188, 240. 

Harwick, Caroline, 31. 

Harwick, Henry, 31. 

Hatlestad, Bjorn, 31, 39, 105, 150. 

Hatlestad, Rev. O. J., 95, 102, 104, 
137, 140, 142, 146, 164-166, I9I, 192, 
234-239. 

Haugaas, Gudmund, 31. 

Hauge, Hans Nielsen, 7, 9-14, 16, 25, 
57, 90, OI, 141, 171, 103 

Haugean, 31, 34, 39, 41, 47, 51, 87, 92, 
105, 117, 154, 155, 173, 183, 187, 188, 
IQI, 196. 

Haugeanism, 25, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 49, 
50, 91, 92, 183, 184. 

Haugeans, 12, 13, 16, 31, 35, 37, 38, 
49, 50, 56, 68, 85, 92, 116, 117, 141, 
144, 146, 147, 183, 185. 

Hauge’s College and Eielsen’s Sem- 
inary, 180. 

Hauge’s Synod (Hauge’s Ev. Lu- 


theran Synod of Amer), I, 49, 78, 


190, 232. 

Eines tatea) Johan, 
56, 183. 

Havre, 33. 

Heart Prairie, Wisconsin, 115, 116. 

Heathen, 116, 144, 145, 183. 

Hebrew, 1095, 204. 

Heg, Even, 47, 48, 58, 62, 79, 93, 94, 
06, 173: 

Hee; Col Hans, 47. 

Heg’s barn, 47-48, 40. 

Heg’s “hotel” (barn), 47, 93. 

Heier, Ole, 36. 

Hell (hellfire), 108, 160, 187. 

Helland, Lars Olson, 29. 

Hellestvedt, Knud, 13. 

Henriksen, Hans, 114. 

Herjulfson, Bjarne, 21. 

Herrnhut movement, 14, 25, 183. 

Hersdal, Sarah Nelson, 31. 

Hersleb, Svend Borchmann, 16, 41, 56. 


14, 16, 25, 41, 


INDEX 


Hesthammer, 28, 20. 

Hetletvedt, Ole Olson, 31, 32, 38. 

Heuch, Bishop J. C., 251. 

High church, high churchly, 48, 67, 
85, 143, 148, 179. 

High churchism, 92, 159. 

History, 138, 147, 203, 242. 

History, Norwegian American, 24, 

Hjort, Rev. O. J., 200. 

Hoffman, Rev. Francis Alex., D.D., 
62, 63, 68, 161. 

Hog offerings, 199. 

Howimesse, 85, 88. 

Holden, Goodhue county, ‘Minnesota, 
174,210 GT eae. 

Hole, Christen Olson (ey Gr: 

Holland, Bjorn, 186. 

Holland, Syver, 186. 

Holstein, 65. 

Holy Christian Church, 147, 150. 

Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit), 108, 
145, 177. 

Holy Scriptures 
tures), 107. 
“Home,” 53, 74. 

Home missionary, 1096. 

Home missions, 183, 184. 

Homespun clothes, 46. 

Homoiousios—homoousios, 147. 

Hornefjeld, Amund Endresen, 66. 

Horrebow, Otto, 6. 

“Hotel,” see Heg’s “Hotel.” 

SHouse (e532. 

Householder (housefather), 123, 173. 

House of God (See also Church 
building), 78-80, 88. 

Housewife, 123. 

Hovland, Gjert Gregoriussen, 33. 

Hoyme, Rev. Gjermund, 79, 
193. 

Hudson Bay, 22. 

Husmand, 78. 

Hymnbook or Hymnal, 5, 53, 90. 

Hymns, 5, 8, 81, 82, 86, 87, 175. 


(See also Scrip- 


192, 


Ibsen, 4. 

Iceland, 21. 

Illinois, 31, 33, 39, 44, 61, 71, 72, 74, 
78, 102, 105, 128, 154, 180. 

Illinois State University, 167, 191. 

Immigrant, 30, 31, 33, 34, 46, 47, 55, 
70, 78), 1390, Tua) aes eae 

Immigration, 24, 33, 42, 181, 208. 

Immoralities, 123. 

Impartation, see Powerful imparta- 
tion. 

Impenitence, 133. 

“In our baptismal covenant and,” see 
“Baptismal covenant and” 


INDEX 


Incidentals, as 

Indian, 21, 

Indian Ores (Leland), Illinois, 45. 

Indian mound, 47, 79. 

Informal, 48, 50, 74. 

Ingebritson, I., 205. 

Inmansville (See also Luther Valley), 
Wisconsin, 139. 


“Inner” light, 50. 
Inner, or internal, call, 50, 150, 156, 
164. 


Intermediaries, 159, 162. 

Intolerance, 27. 

Invisible church, 149, 150, 155, 194. 

Iowa, 39, 44, 61, 105, 117, 128, 154, 
180, 208, 222. 

Iowa District (of the Norwegian 
Synod), 128, 213. 

Irgens, Bishop Dr. Ole, 7. 

Isaac, 218. 

Isle of Man, 21. 


Jackson county, Minnesota, 190. 
Jacob, 136. 


Jacobsen, Mr., Muskego, Wisconsin, 


II5. 

Jacobson, Mr., Wind Lake, Wiscon- 
sin, 79. 

Jacobson, Rev. J. C., 239. 

Jail 22220. 


Jefferson county, 66. 

Jefferson Prairie, 45, 64, 66, 71, 97, 
TORSCTOS 111351120, 0192; 230, 237. 

Jensen, Rev. N. E., 180 

Jensen, Rev. Rasmus, 22, 23. 

Jerusalem, 175. 

Jesus Christ, Son, 107, 108, I09, IIo, 
149, 163, 175-177, 203, 205, 223-225, 
228, 229, 231-233. 

Jew, 204, 224, 225. 

Jewish, 152, 203, 212, 223. 

“Jewish fables,” 224. 

Job, 136. 

Johannesen, Johannes, 47, 48, 79. 

Johnson, Rev. Amon, 235. 

Johnson, Prof. Gisle, 17, 56, 65, 92, 
II9, 144, 162, 185, I9I, 195, 197, 
218, 221. 

Johnson, Rev. Th., 201. 

Johnsonian awakening, 117. 

Joint Ohio Synod (Lutheran), 120, 
123, 126, 127, 193, 194. 

Judas, 229. 

Judge, 133. 

Judgment, 133. 

“Justification of the World,” 2 


anton. Prof, J. MP.) +183: 
Kendall, New York, 28, 30-34, 39. 


261 


Kendallites, 33. 

Keys, see Office of the Keys. 

King of Denmark-Norway, 4. 

King of Sweden,Norway, 27, 66. 

Kingdom, God’s, 188, 217. 

Kingo’s hymns, 8. 

Kirche und Amt, 164. 

Kirkelig Maanedstidende, Lag fM30, 
I5I, 154, 155, 163-165, 167, 174, 193, 
210, 221, 222, 225. 

Kirkelig Tidende (Rasmussen’s), 142, 
144, 153, 155. 

Kirketidende (Hatlestad’ S), 137-142, 
154, 164, 191. 

Kirketidende, Norsk Luthersk (An- 
drewsen’ s), 164. 

Kirketidende, oe (in Norway), 
Paki 

Kirketidende (Norw. Synod’s), 196 

Kirkevarge, 86. 

Klokker, 80, 81, 86. 

Klokker bon, 86. 

Knudsen, Knud, 71. 

Kopervik, Norway, I14. 

Koralbog, 82. 

Koren, Rev. Ulrik Vilhelm, 117, 128, 
152, 160, 161, 168, 174, 180, 196, 198, 
2105220... 231, 230: 

Koren, Mrs. Else Elizabeth (née Hy- 
sing), 128. 

Koren Library, Luther College, De- 
corah, Iowa, 137, 140n. 

Koshkonong, 37, 42, 45, 46, 51, 54, 64, 
66, 69, 70-78, 80, 84, 93, 105, 106, 
112, 116, 121, 126-120, 134, 149, 186, 
224. 

Koshkonong Prairies, 66. 

iranse “heya la Buse, 

Krogh, N., 26. 

Krognes, Rev. S. M., 235, 237-239. 

Krohn, Rev. J., 201. 

“Kubberulle,” go. 


Langland, Knud, 136-138, 140, 141. 

Landsverk, Olaus, 186. 

Languages, 195. 

Large Confession, by Luther, 140. 

Larsen, Rev. Jacob, 195. 

Larsen, Prof. Laur., 177; 150, 165, 
168, 173, 174, 180-182, 195, 199, 202- 
204, 206, 210, 214-216, 218; 220, 221, 
220-230. 

Larson, Jorgen, I13. 

Larson, Lars (i Jeilane), 24, 29-32. 

Larson, Mrs. Lars, 20. 

La Salle county, Illinois, 31, 33, 34, 
97. 

aeteay2t7. 


“Last impression,” 51, 57, 92. 


262 


Latin, 147, 161, 187. 

Law (in Bible), 90, 91, 219, 224, 225, 
227, 220. 

Law (Jurisprudence, rule), 57, 178, 
203, 207, 200, 212. 

Lay Christianity, 16. 

Lay system, 51, 62, 188, Igo. 

Layman (ordinary member of 
church), laity, 81, 92, 115, 125, 130, 
134, 146, 162, 168, 169, 170, 171-173, 
177\ 178, 107,.205,4207, 200, 211). 222, 
241. 

Layman (unordained preacher), 12, 
13, 36-39, 46, 48, 49, 51, 54-56, 59, 
61, 70, 92, 94, 125, 134, 135, 168, 
178, 185, 187, 241. 

Laymen’s activity, 50, 55, 154, 162- 
164, 167, 171, 172, 179, 180, 185, 197, 
221, 240, 242. 

“Learned,” 96. 

Legal, 203, 207. 

Legislature, 120, 124, 208. 

“Legitimate,” 67. 

Lehre und Wehre, 164. 

Lesser Gloria, 86. . 

Letters to the Trondhjemmers, by 
Olaus Nielsen, 160. 

Liberty, liberties, 123, 124, 204, 200, 
212)°220, 225, 

Library, 124. 

“License” (to preach), 62, 63, 165. 

Life, 37, 165. 

Lime Creek, Iowa, 213. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 197. 

Lindeman, Rey. L. 'M., 82. 

Linderoth’s, Lars, Postille, 140. 

Lisbon, Illinois, 45, 105, 142, 143, 150, 
153, 154, 186. 

Lisbon Norwegian Lutheran Associa- 
tion for the Publication of Chris- 
tian Books of Instruction and Edi- 
fication, 143. 

“Little flock, The,” 156. 

Little Iowa, Winneshiek county, Iowa, 
128, 193, 194. 

Liturgical, 85. 

Liturgy, 5, 235. 

Lochner, Rev. Mr., 158. 

Locust, Iowa, 181. 

Lofoten, Norway, 90. 

Log, 78, 90. 

Log house, hut, or cabin, 41, 53, 67, 
74, 78. 

London, 24. 

“Long-frocked” clergy, 40. 

Long Prairie, Illinois, 45. 

Lord’s Prayer, 86. 

Lord’s Supper (See also Sacrament of 
the Altar), 49, 54, 66, 87, 101, 150. 


INDEX 


Lots, 188. 

Low-church, 42, 51, 67. 

Low-churchism, 41, 92. 

Luraas, John Nelson, 46, 105. 

Luther, Dr. Martin, 104, 141, 196, 197, 
BIA eT, 

Lutheran, 32, 36, 37, 39, 56, 58, 72, 


82, 84, 87, 94, 103, 104; 107, jEXr3, 
117, 120; 127, 138)\" 140) aah 
161, - 165, 106, 168, 174.00 7oees 
193, 194, 196, 197, 225, 227, 236, 


238, 239, 241. 

Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, 83, 
117, 124n, 183, 185, 195, 196, 199- 
201, S22) 2Aly 2A, 

Luther College Library, 
Iowa, see Koren Library. 

Luther College Museum, Decorah, 
Iowa, 90n. 

Luther Theological 
Paul, Minnesota, 79. 

Luther Valley, Wisconsin, 71, 79, 80, 
85, 93, 114, 117-119, 129, 139, 156, 
159, 165, 174, 198, 208, 212. 

Lutheran Church Herald, 78n. 

Lutheran Normal School, Sioux Falls, 
South Dakota, 192. 

Lutheran Standard, 126. 

Lutheraner, Der, 148, 151, 186, 203. 

Lutheraneren, 236, 238, 230. 

Lutheranism, 38, 39, 49, 64, 88, 94, 102, 
120,126,127, 134,) 165.167. 

Lutherans, 36, 62, 88, 101, 102, 104, 
IIO, 124, 165, 166, 182, 188, 228. 

Luther’s Large Catechism, 224, 225. 

Luther’s Large Confession, 140. 

Luther’s Postil, 8. 

Luther’s Small Catechism, 6, 82 n, 108, 
127, 129, 140, 236. 

Luther’s theses, 11. 

Lysnes, Rev. David, 192, 235, 237, 239. 


Decorah, 


Seminary, St. 


Maanedstidende, 114, 116, 129, 138- 
140, 142, 146, 159, 193. 

Madeira Islands (Funchal), 29. 

Madison, Wisconsin, 66, 140. 

Magelssen, Rev. C. F., 174, 180. | 

Maid-servant, 203. 

Malaria, 46, 53. 

‘Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 93, 127. 

Man-servant, 203. 

Marriage, 55, 73, 120. 

Marsett, Canute Peterson, 31. 

Marshall, Wisconsin, I9I, 192, 234, 
237228 62a te 

Martyr, 14, 188. 

“Mass” Christianity, 60. 

Master, 108, 204, 205, 212, 214-216, 
210. 





INDEX 


Master of Arts degree, 125. 

“Mayflower” of Norwegians, 26. 

Means of Grace, 17, 58, 60, 92, 156, 
228. 

‘Meeting, 130, 172. 

Meeting for edification, 164, 172. 

“Meeting House,” 78, 79. 

Meetinger, Middens, 70. 

Melanchthon, Philip, 216. 

Meland, M., 235. 

Melchizedek, 31. 

Memorize, 81. 

Mennonites, 70. 

Methodist, 32, 37, 156. 

Methodists, 26, 36, 37, 70. 

Michigan, 30, 33. 

Middle Point, La Salle county, Illi- 
nois, 97, 100, 104, 106, 142. 

Middle West, 1, 3, 32, 60, 90. 

Middle Western, 19, 28, 32, 127, 158. 

Mikkelsen, Rev. A., 201. 

Miles, English, 44. 

Miles, Norwegian, 44. 

Military service, 18, 49. 

Military talent, 70. 

‘Millennium, 217. 

Milwaukee, 28, 33, 46, 58, 66, 71, 93, 
96, 158. 

Milwaukee county, 58, 61. 

Minister (See also clergy and pastor), 
139, 181. 

Ministerium of the Lutheran Church 
of Northern Illinois, 62. 


aa 68, 70, 108, 174-176, 178, 
180. 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 78n, 193, 
239. 


Minnesota, 44, 61, 
180, 208, 222, 230. 
Mission, La Salle County, Illinois, 33. 

Mission school, 56. 

Mission society (See also Norwegian 
Mission Society), 56, 183, 184. 

Mission trips, 208. 

Missionaries, 56, 109, 124. 

paenaty, Dees LL 7b 124, 163, 8105; 
196. 

Missions (See also Foreign Missions, 
Home Missions), 183, 196, 199. 

Missouri, 74, 197. 

“Missouri,” 148, 154, 158, 163, 164, 
167, 168, 179, I9I, 194, 197-200, 202, 
210, 227. 

“Missourians,” 159, 163, 166, 104. 

“Missouri” Synod, 105, 127, 148, 155, 
158, 163, 164, 166, 181, 196, 198, 227. 

“Missouri” Synod Seminary, Fort 
Wayne, Indiana, 105, 148. 

Mistress, 108. 


79, 105, 154, 165, 


263 
Modified Oxford gown, 85. 
Moline, Illinois, 234. 
Monopoly Law of 1797, 12, 13. 
Montana, 44. 
Mormons (Latter Day Saints), 31, 
36, 37, 41, 70. 
Mother Church (See also State 
Church of Norway), 52, 75, 171, 


To2,. 107e.a2T. 

Mother country, 181. 

Mountain, 2, 3, 8, 90, 92. 

‘Mountainsides, 53. 

Mouthpiece, 168, 170, 176. 

Miller-Eggen, Rev. J., 192. 

Munch, Rev. J. St., 159, 180. 

Munk, Capt. Jens, 22. 

mV tall 70) L072: 

Mutual admonition, 168-170, 172, 173. 

aa edification, 168-170, 172, 173, 
178. 

Muskego, 38, 42, 45-51, 54, 56-64, 66, 
69, 71, 79, 80, 87, 93, 95, 113, I15, 
116, 118, 125, 134, 136, 144, 145, 159, 
165. 

Miuns Reve bee) all 7sei 70, oi73.174; 
180, 181, 205, 210, 212, 213, 226, 220- 
ich rr dee 

Myhra, 108. 

‘Myhre, Gulbrand, 146. 


Naessa, Rev. J. J., 235. 

Napoleon, 4. 

Narvig, Ingebret Larson, 30, 31, 33. 

Nations, 175. 

Nattestad, Ansten, 42-44, 52. 

Nattestad, Ole, 42, 43, 52. 

Nausea, 52. 

Neergaard, John, 15. 

Ivelson, "Prot ON) 26.032, 

Nelson, Sigri, Eielsen’s wife, 48. 

Nestor, 195. 

Net, 83. 

Newspaper, 136. 

New Amsterdam, 23. 

Newcomer, 22, 78, 132. 

New Jerusalem, 107. 

“New Tendency,” 190. 

New Testament, 6, 76, 107, 109, 168, 
175, 203, 211, 212, 218-220. 

New York, 23, 28-30, 32, 39, 41, 66, 
Os n102, 124.126) 

New York Daily Advertiser, 30. 

Niagara Falls, 30. 

Nicene Creed, 129, 236. 

Nielsen, Olaus, 150, 156. 

Nielsen, Ole, 115. 

“Night hawking,” 123. 

Nissen’s Latin School, 127, 128. 

Noah, A second, 9. 


264 


Non-conformist, 34. 

Norden (The North), 34. 

Nordlyset (The Northern Light), 97, 
137,241. 

Nordmandsforbund, 18. 

Nordmor, I65. 

Norelius, Rev. E., 166, 240. 

Norlie, Dr. O. M., 181, 241. 

Norse, see Norwegian. 

Norse, Texas, 29. 

Norsk Lutherske Kirkes Historie 4 
Amerika, by Rev. J. A. Bergh, 106. 

Norsk Luthersk Maanedsskrift, 138. 

Norske Amerikaner, Den, 152. 

Norske Klippe, Den (The Norwegian 
Rock), 34. 

Norskes Ven, De, 137. 

North, 198, 204. 

Northern Illinois Synod, 104, 125, 127, 
134, 142, 143, 154, 164-167, 180, Io1, 
233. 

Northwest, 74. 

Northwest Passage, 22. 

Norway, Europe, 2-7, 9, II, 14, I5, 
17, 19, 21, 22, 26-31, 33, 35-37, 39-42, 
44-46, 48-52, 54; 56-59, 61, 64, 65, 68, 
69, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 83, 88, 90, 92, 
93, 96, 114, 116, 118, 124, 125, 141, 
144, 147, 158, 160, 162, 165, 173, 179, 
181, 182, 187, 193, 197, 208, 217, 221, 
Boeya25 eAe. 

Norway, Illinois, 78, 142. 

Norway, Racine county, Wisconsin, 


47. 

Norway Grove, Wisconsin, 75, 110. 

Norway settlement, lowa, 128. 

Norwegian, 27, 30, 32-34, 37, 42, 44, 
53, 75, 79, 90, 93, 95, 96, 103, 106, 
117, 122, 124, 126, 136, 140, 143, 148, 
163, 165, 166, 171, 180, 181, 183, 185, 
186, 190, IQI, 195, 204, 222, 234. 

Norwegian American Lutheran 
Church, 75-78, 890, 95, 163, 200. 

Norwegian American Lutheranism, 1, 
2, 9, 20, 32, 41, 42, 46, 67, 69, 72, 
OI, 181, 182, 233, 240-242. 

Norwegian Church in America, II5. 

Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod, 
192, 234-239, 241. 

Ra Nitta Ge oe Augustanans, 237, 
238. 

Norwegian-Danish organ, 236. 

Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America, II5, 116, 121, 
129, 131, 133, 134. 

Norwegian Luther College (See also 
Luther College), 196. 

Norwegian Lutheran Church in 
America, I15. 


INDEX 


Norwegian Lutheran Church of 
America, I, 2, 30, 77, 85, 89, 192, 
200, 241. 

Norwegian Lutheran Free Church, 
193, 241. 

“Norwegian Missionary 
The,” 56, 183. 

Norwegian Synod (Norwegian Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Synod of Amer- 
ica—see also Synod), 1, 49, 78, 87, 
100, 106, 114, I15, 117, 120, 122, 127- 
131, 133-135, 139, 142, 180, 182, 183, 
193, 200, 208, 227, 232-234, 236, 239- 
241. 

Norwegians, 3, 21, 23, 33, 36, 37, 39, 
47, 55, 56, 65, 72, 104, 120, 125, 127, 
134, 136, 143, 154, 155, 158, 162, 165- 
167, 174, 181, 186, 188, 190, 191, 193, 
199, 200, 202, 203, 207, 222, 223, 233- 
235, 239, 242. 

Notes, dotted, 82. 

“Novel Sight, A,” 30. 

Numedal, 44, 45, 50, 66. 

Numedalians, 42. 


Oak, 66, 78, 79. 

Oath, 49, 120, 121, 129. 

Octavo, form, 138, 139. 

Odland, Mr., 40. 

oes 168. 

ering, 64, 73, 88. 

Office, 55. 

Office-holding class, 35, 38, 50, 59, 65, 
67, 183, 185, 208, 222, 

Office of the Keys, 232, 233. 

Official class, 15, 25, 184. 

Officialism, 25. 

Officials, 15, 40, 52, 183-185. 

Oftedal, Lars, 193. 

Oftedal, Prof. Sven, 193, 226, 240, 241. 

Oftedolinger, 193. 

Ohio Synod (See also Joint Ohio), 
127, 194. 

Ohioans, 127, 193. 

Olabok, 15. 

Old Constitution, 98, 99, 105, 106, 110, 
Be 143, 149, 150, 153-157, 185, 190, 


“Old Main” at Luther College, Dec- 
orah, Iowa, 199. 

“Old Tendency,” 190. 

Old Testament, 76, 129, 168, 174, 204, 
224, 225. 

Olsdatter, Anna, 26. 

Olsen, Rev. Johan, 235, 236. 

Olsnaes, 108. 

Olson, Rev. N., 235. 

Olson (Hetletvedt), Ole, 31, 32, 38. 

Olson, Dr. Oscar L., 124 n. 


Society, 


INDEX 


Olson, Col. Porter C., 309. 

Onesimus, 205. 

“Open Questions,” 221. 

Opinion, 186, 203, 214, 215, 217. 

Opportunists, 196. 

Ordain, 60, 61, 66, 60, 70, 76, 96, IOT, 
105, 115, 120, 128, 133, 150, 154, 178, 
194, 201. 

Order of Salvation, 87. 

“Orders,” 58. 

Ordinance of January 13, 1736, on 
Confirmation, 5. 

Ordination, 58-63, 67-68, 82, 93, II5, 
I2I, 120, 156, 158, 161, 200. 

Ordination, Clausen’s, 58-59. 

Ordination, Dietrichson’s, 66. 

Ordination, Eielsen’s, 61-63, 67-69, 115, 
140. 

Organ (a paper), 139, 148, 191, 204. 

Organ (reed), 81. 

Organist, 81, 82. 

Organization, 74, 89, 96, 97, 112, 118, 
120, 120, 134, 180, 192, 234-236, 230. 

Organize, 75, 97, 99, 100, 128, 154, 192, 


234. 

Original sin, 96. 

Wrtiodox.) 7,.127,.,154;.102.. 103, 1 FOS. 
TOO 101412215 1231, (233. 

Orthodoxy, 5, 8, 9, 117, 147, 154, 155, 
160, 162, 196, 223. 

Oslo, See also Christiania, 66, 71, 213. 

Ostracized, 184. 

Ottesen, Rev. Jacob Aal, 117, 127, 129, 
158-161, 164, 167, 168, 173, 174, 194, 
206, 200-211, 213, 225, 226. 

Our Savior’s Church, Chicago, 168. 

Our Savior’s Church, Christiania, 16. 

“Ours” (Eielsen’s followers), 48, 60, 
74- 

Ox wagons, 200. 

Oxen, 90. 

Oxford gown, 85. 


Paint Creek, Iowa, 128, 213. 

Pan-Scandinavianism, 193. 

Parents, 187. 

Parochial rights, 72, 155. 

Parochial school, 83, 126, 131. 

Parochial school teachers, 105, 116. 

Parsonage, 57, 192, 199. 

Passavant, Dr. W. A., 238. 

Pastor (preacher, minister), 53, 55, 
59-61, 63, 64, 68-70, 72-74, 76, 77) 81, 
83-87, 92-96, 104, 105, 108, 109, I12- 
I2I, 123-126, 128-134, 138-142, 146, 
152, 153, 157-162, 165-172, 174, 175, 
177, 178, 181, 182, 185, 186, 190, 194, 
196, 197, 199, 200, 206-213, 218-221, 
229-232, 238, 241. 


265 


Pastoral, 120, 127, 140, 181, 222. 

Pastoral conference, 209, 212-214, 220. 

Pastoral domination, 140, 

Pastoral office, 121, 129, 133. 

Pastorate, 127, 135, 181. 

Pastors Resolution, The, 206, 208, 
209, 211, 212, 214, 217. 

Patience, patient, 136, 175, 238: 

Paul, the Apostle, 100, 110, 156, 174- 
177, 205, 215, 224, 225, 220, 

Paulsen, Rev. O., 235, 236. 

Pavels, Rev. Claus, 14. 

Paxton, Illinois, ror, 238), 234: 

Peace of 1814, 24, 40, 

Pearls, 231. 

Pederson, Halvor, 83. 

Pederson, Jorgen, 26037. 

Peerson, Cleng, 24, 27-31, 33. 

Penn, William, the N orwegian-Amer- 
ican, 43. 

Pentecost, 73. 

People, 183, 184, 105, 199, 208, 210, 
220, 221, 225, 227. 

Persecution (persecute, persecuted), 
18, 26, 27, 30, 49, 52, IOI, 171. 

Perseverance, 136. 

“Personel kapellan,” 114, 

Perry, Wisconsin, 212, 

Pestilence, 22. 

Peter, the Apostle, 177, 229. 

Pharisees, 224. 

Philemon, 205. 

Philip, 168. 

etisics, 182, 
ietism, 5, 8, 9, 197, 223. 

Pietist, 6, +i ee : 

Pietistic, 6, 117, 171, 196, 197, -225, 
eai 

Piety, 108, 154, 162. 

Pilgrims (analogy to 
Pilgrims), 26, 30. 

eballars,? 146. 

Pine Lake, Wisconsin, 72, 93, 117, 110. 

Pioneers, 184, 199. 

Pitch, 81, 86, 

Plague, 23. 

Polemics, 151. 

Political discontent, 218. 

Political equality, 212. 

Political factors, 1, 4, 5, 51, 92, 126, 
143, 183. 

Political paper, 138. 

Political reaction, 51. 

Political reform, 184. 

Political revolts in Europe, 3, 4, 92. 

Politics, 143. 

Polity, church, 130, 194. 

Pontoppidan’s Collegium Pastorale, 
70, 73, 77, 80. 


“Mayflower” 


266 


Pontoppidan’s Explanation (Sandhed 
til Gudfrygtighed), 6, 41, 108, I10, 
116, 140, 143, 147, 223. 

Pontoppidan’s Large Explanation of 
Luther’s Catechism (called “Dub- 
belte” by Eielson), 40, 82, 147. 

Popular, 183, 185, 189, 199, 208. 

Population, 181. 

Porsgrund, I14. 

Port Julio, Wisconsin, 93. 

Port Washington, Wisconsin, 93, 144, 


159. 
Postils, 5, 8, 11, 58, 90, 105, 123. 
Powerful impartation, 227, 230, 
233. 
Practice, 127, 163, 165, 173. 


Pray (prayer), 164, 168-173, 178, 182, 
199. 

Prayer meetings, 150, 156, 162, 164, 
172, 173) 

PEACH, SG 10S, 1170; 71715 175s el geal Zo: 
197. 

Preacher, 175, 186, 227. 

Predestination, 223. 

Prejudice, 196. 

Presbyterian, 36, 70, 95, 185. 

President, 114, 117, 127-133, 146, 190- 
192, 195, 198, 200, 2II, 213, 215, 


217, 234-238. 

Press, 75, 136-140, 142, 143. 

Press Association, see Scandinavian 
Press Association, 

Preus, Rev. A. C., 115, 116, 118-121, 
124, 125, 128, 120, 138, 140, 144, 146, 
147, 149, 150, 152, 155, 158-162, 164, 
165, 171, 173, 174, 181, 193, 209, 211, 
220, 223. 

Preus, Rev. H. A., 68, 116, 117, 119- 
I2I, 129, 139, 140, 145, I5I, 152, 155- 
157, 159, 163, 165, 167, 168, 174, 182, 
192, 198, 206, 210, 211, 213-215, 217, 
218, 221, 226. 

Preuses (A. C. and H. A.), The, 122, 
148-151, 160. 

Primrose, Wisconsin, 153. 

Priest, 177. 

Priesthood of believers (See also Uni- 
versal priesthood of believers), 160, 


174. 

“Priestridden” Christianity, 69. 

Principal, 187, 188, 190. 

Prisoner, 220. 

Private absolution, 227-220. 

Private confession, 227, 229. 

Prodigy, 195. 

Profanity, 83. 

Professor, 186, 191-195, 199, 200, 202- 
204, 206, 241. 

Prophet, 177, 178. 


INDEX 


Protestant church, 160. 
Proctocol, 89, 96, 98, 131. 
Prussian Union, I01. 
Psalm, 175. 

Psalmebog, 140, 142. 
Psalmodikon, 81. 

Public admonition, 170, 171. 
Public opinion, 60, 140, 143, 108. 
Publicly, 169-171, 177, 178. 
Public teachings, 169, 171. 
Pulpit, 79, 84-87. 

Pupils, 186. 

“Pure doctrine,” 36. 


Quaker, 25, 26, 27-29, 32, 36. 
Quakerish, 50. 

Quakerism, 25, 27, 35, 49, 67. 
Quakers, 24-32, 35-37, 50, 56, 92, 183. 
Queen Anne, 45. 


“R'PICIOUR EES Jy Oat 

Racine, Wisconsin, 137, 139. 

Racine county, 47, 58, 61. 

Fear Kuirketidende,’ Hatlestad’s, 


139. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 85. 

Rasmussen, Rev. P. A., 68, 79, 105, 
IIO, 117, 142-144, 147-156, 158-165, 
168, 169, 171-174, 178-180, 186-188, 
194, 196, 197, 226. 

Rationalism, 6, 10, 12, 30, 210. 

Rationalist, rationalistic, 12, 14, I7I. 

Rattlesnakes, 93. 

Rebellion, 204, 212. 

Recitative, 82. 

Red Wing, Minnesota, 188, 189. 

Red Wing Seminary, 243. 

Reformed, The, 84, 101, 138, 152, 228. 

Reformation, The, 14. 

Refutation, by Larsen & Schmidt, 214, 
215, 216. 

Regiments, 203. 

Reierson, Johan Reinert, 52. 

Reise (Reise blandit de norske Emi- 
granter +4 “De forenede nordameri- 
kanske Fristater”’), 50, 75, 83, 112. 

Religious discontent, 143. 

Religious-ecclesiastical matters, 
131. 

Religious factors, 49, 183. 
Religious instruction, 6, 41, 57, 60, 71, 
I, 83, 108, 109, 124, 127, 131, 186 
Religious papers, press, journal, 137- 


130, 


130. 

Relea texts (textbooks), 144, 160, 
187. 

Religious work and conditions at Fox 
River, 34 ff. 


INDEX 


Religious work and conditions at Ken- 
dall (The sloopers), 30 ff. 

Religious work and conditions at 
Koshkonong, 66 ff. 

Religious work and conditions at 
‘Muskego, 47 ff. 

Report, see Rasmussen, 148, 151, 153 n, 
155. 

Report of the Synod (Synodical Re- 
port), 148, 151, 153n, 155. 

Represent, representation, representa- 
tive, 76, 109, I12-113, 130. 

Resolution, Clausen’s, 210, 211. 

Resolution, Pastors’ (See also Pas- 
tors’ Resolution), 206, 208, 209, 211, 
Big etsy aly: 

Resolution, by Hauge’s Synod, 190. 

Resolution of 1859, 198. 

Response, 86. 

Restaurationen (The Restoration), 29. 

Retraction, Clausen’s, 145, 210. 

Retraction, A. C. Preus’, 159. 

Retraction, Rasmussen’s, 161. 

Retraction, Stub’s, 123, 144-145. 

Revival, see Awakening 

Reymert, J. D., 93, 113, 136, 137, 141, 


153 n. 
Reynolds, Prof. W. M., 126. 
Riegels, 6. 
Riise, Carl Martin, 139. 
Ringsaker, Norway, 42. 
Riots, 197. 
Rite, 55, 103, 150, 235. 
Ritual, 62, 69, 77, 95, IOI, 


149. 

Ritual of the Church of Denmark 
and Norway, 58, 64, 69, 70, 76, 77; 
80, 83, I10, I12, 120, 130. 

Rochester, New York, 2039) 

Rock County, Wisconsin, 41, 80, 105. 

Rock Ground, Illinois, 71. 

Rock Prairie, Wisconsin, B77 AG Ua 
64, 68, 71, 114, 145, 226. 

Rock River, Wisconsin, 71, 93, I19, 


LIZ 15, 


225. 

Rock Run, Illinois, 45, 64, 71, 128. 

Ronning, N. N., 186. 

Roman, 203, 212. 

Romanizing tendency, 158, 159. 

Rosenius, 143. 

Rossadals, 30, 31. 

Royal Commission, see Commission. 

Royal Frederik University (See also 
Christiania University), 16, 56, 125, 
127, 128, 184, 197. 

Ru 

Ruh, Rev. M. Pa35 237,230; 

Rush River, Wisconsin, 195. 

Rushford, Minnesota, 103. 


267 


Russian, 4. 

Rustad, Mr., 236. 

Rynning, Rev. Jens, 42, 44. 
Rynning, Ole, 24, 34, 42-44, 52. 


Sabbatarians, 223, 225. 

Sabbath, 123, 223-225. 

Sackville, Wisconsin, 93. 

Sacrament, 40, 50, 55, 60, 92, 104, 132, 
147, 150, 169, 171, 175-177, 221, 227, 
228, 

Sacrament of Baptism, 110, 138, 177. 

Sacrament of the Altar (See also 
Lord’s Supper), 49, 54, 66, 110, 132, 
120,7377, 0227. 

Sacrifice, 170, 199. 

St. Ansgar, Iowa, 118, 145, 192, 208, 
213, 235-239. 

St. Cloud Hotel, Decorah, Iowa, 199. 

St. Louis, Missouri, 127, 155, 163, 
193-200, 202, 204, 213, 221, 241. 

St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minne- 
sota, 83. 

St. Paul, Minnesota, 79, 232. 

Salary, 61, 64, 71, 73, 76, 187, 194, 199. 

Salutation, 86. 

Salvation, 133, 163, 175, 176, 178, 188, 
197, 198, 228, 231. 

Samaritans, 182. 

Sanctification, 87, I51. 

Sandberg, Gudmund, 33. 

Sande, Hans Markussen, 189. 

Sarpsborg, 10. 

Satan, IIo. 

Satiety, spiritual, 52, 53. 

Savage, 44. 

Savior, 92, 107. 

Saxons, 127. 

Saxtorph, Rev. Peder, 140, 147. 

Scandinavian, 3, 18, 70, 104, 165-167, 
180, I91, 195. 

Scandinavian Augustana Synod, 309, 
167, 180, 183, 226, 233, 234, 237, 
230. 

Scandinavian Augustanans, 230, 239. 

Scandinavian Press Association, 138- 
142. 

Scheie, Rev. Andrew, 192, 237. 

Scheldahl, Rev. Osmund, 180, 235. 

Schism, 174. 

Schleswig-Holstein, 165, 193. 

Schleswigian, 181. 

Schmidt, Bishop Christian, 7. 

Schmidt, Prof. F. A., 117, 199, 210, 
214-216, 218, 233. 

Schmucker, Prof. S. S., 191 

Schmuckerites, 191. 

Schénheyder, Bishop Dr. Joh. Kris- 
ten, 7. 


268 


Schools, 56, 57, 66, 71, 81, 82, 105, 
108, 109, 127, 131, 153, 160, 182-106, 
199, 234, 237, 241. 

Schreuder, Bishop Hans Paludan 
Smith, 56, 57, 65, 183, 184. 

Schrick, Paulus, 23. 

Scripture, 107, 109, I10, 123, 133, 145, 
150, 156, 164, I70, 202, 204, 215, 216, 
218-221, 225, 227, 229, 230. 

Seaman, 180. 

Sea-monsters, 44, 50. 

Secede, 203. 

Secession, 198, 204. 

Secessionist, 204. 

Secessionistic, 198, 202. 

Secretary, 06;107,, 100, "113, 114, 127, 
128, 192, 211, 234-236, 238. 

Secttaty 66.81 163: 

Sectarian, 68, 70. 

Sect-ridden, 60. 

Seminary, see Theological seminary. 

Sermon, 86, 87, 93, 99, 114, 124, 140, 
VAG 

Servant, 123, 203. 

Service, 123. 

Seventh Day Adventists, see Adven- 
tists. 

“Seven Stars, The,” 5. 

Shepherd of souls, 132. 

Shipwreck, 1809. 

Sicily, 21. 

Siewers, Prof. L., 200. 

Sign of the cross, 149. 

Sign of the devil, 140. 

Sihler, Dr. W., Fort Wayne, Indiana, 
105, 154, 212. 

Silver Lake, Iowa, 213. 

Sin, 132, 170, 173, 178, 202-207, 200- 
212, 214-210, 227, 228. 

Singing, 8, 53, 82, 86, 175. 

“Singing out of church,” 82. 

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 192. 

Special priesthood, 174, 176, 178. 

Skaar, Kleng, 30. 

Skavlem, Paul H., 62, 105. 

Skien, Norway, 114. 

Skoponong, Wisconsin, 71, 93, I16. 

Skralings, 21. 

Skylark, 53. 

Slave, 202-206, 209-212, 214-219. 

Slavery, 109, 198, 203, 220, 221, 230, 
233, 242. 

Slave state, 202. 

Slavery Question, 198, 204, 221, 226, 
230), 2340242 

Slogvig, Knud Anderson, 34. 

Sloop, 29-31, 39. 

Slooper, 31, 32, 34, 56. 

Smaa Fortallinger til Fadervor, 140- 


INDEX 


Smith, John, 37. 

Social discontent, 143, 184, 185. 

Social equality, 212. 

Social factor, I, 4, 17, 35, 92, 183-185. 

“Social good time,” 3, 40. 

Social revolution, 17, 51, 92. 

“Society,” Quaker, 26. 

S6renson, Bishop, of Christiania, 64, 
66, 71. 

Sorenson,’ P., 66. 

Sé6renson, Rasmus, 165. 

Sogn (Sogndal), 2n., 66. 

Solberg, Carl Fredrik, 140. 

Solomon, 136. 

Song, 175. 

South, 198, 202, 203. 

Special Synodical Decisions, 115, 133. 

Speech, frivolous, 133. 

Spiritual priest, 170, 171, 175-178. 

Spiritual priesthood of believers (See 
also Universal priesthood of be- 
lievers), 50, 172, 174, 175. 

Sponsors, 87. 

Springfield, Illinois, 190. 

Springfield parsonage, 
county, Iowa, 192. 

Spring Prairie, Wisconsin, 75-77, 116, 
148, 150, 153, 159-161, 186. 

Sprinkling, 87. 

State, 58, 183, 184, 199, 203. 

State Church (adj.), 48, 60, 172. 

State Church clergy, 36, 187. 

State Church officials, 12. 

State Church pastors, 35, 37, 40, 48, 
I4I. 

State Church of Norway (Lutheran), 
I, 10, 52, 56, 58, 64, 67, 69, 73, 75, 
76, 130, 141, 160, 173, 182, 183, 197, 
2211230. 

Statesman, 128. 

Stavanger, 24, 26-29, 32, 34-36, 40, 50, 
65, 183, 184. 

Stavanger Amt, 28, 209. 

Stavangerings (people of Stavenger), 
25, 26, 34, 35, 42, 46, 50, 56, 66, 193. 

Steinbach, Rev. Mr., 158. 

Stenersen, Stener Johannes, 16, 40, 56. 

Stephen, 168. 

Stephenson county, Illinois, 71. 

Stole, 85. 

Stones, 163, 171, 188, 199. 

Storm center, 196. 

Storthing, Norwegian, 15, 51, 193. 

Strard,. Fi.) 245. 

Strategic, 37, 120. 

Strategist, 60. 

Strategy, 136, 182. 

Stub, Rev. Hans Andreas, 93, 94, 98, 
105, 106, I10, 112-114, 116, 118, 121, 


Winneshiek 


INDEX 


122, 123, 125, 120, 135, 144, 145, 147, 
159, 165, 181, 182, 184, 201. 

Stub, Rev. Hans Gerhard, 200. 

Stub, ‘Mrs. Ingeborg, 94. 

Stub, Mrs. Valborg Hovind, 94n. 

Student body, 192. 

Students, 192. 

Stuyvesant, Gov. Peter, 23. 

Subscribers, 138, 139. 

Subscription, 136, 138, 130. 

Suffering in settlements, 53, 54. 

Sugar Creek, Wisconsin, 94. 

Sunday, 223-226. 

Sunday question, 223, 226, 240, 242. 

Sunday schools, 124. 

“Superintendent,” 116. 

“Superstition,” 8. 

Supply, pastoral, 158. 

Surplice, 85. 

Suspension of pastor, 133. 

Sverdrup, Prof. George, 239, 241. 

Symbolical Books or Writings, 76, 
122, 127, 129, 133, 140, 236. 

Symbolist, 191. 

Symbols, 123, 148, 149, 168, 178, 194, 
107. 

Synagogue, 225. 

Synod, 112, 114-116, 118, 120, 124, 127, 
129-131, 133, 134, 150, 151, 180, 182, 
183, 186, 190, 193, 233, 234, 236. 

Synod (The Norwegian—See also 
Norwegian Synod), 1, 112, 114-118, 
120, 122-124, 127-135, 130, 143, 146, 
148-153, 155, 158-160, 162, 164, 165, 
166, 170, 180, 181-183, 185, 193, 104, 
196-198, 200, 207, 208, 210, 211, 213- 
215, 217, 218, 220-222, 226, 230, 232- 
234, 230-241. 

Synod for the Norwegian Evangelical 
Lutheran Church of America, The. 
See Synod, and Norwegian Synod, 
134. 

Synod meeting, 174, 204, 210-212, 214, 
220, 226, 227. 

Synod men (pastors), 140, 152-154, 
158, 150, 161-164, 166, 167, 160, 170, 
174, 196, 208-211, 213, 214, 217, 220, 
221, 224, 230, 231, 240. 

Synodical, 112, 147. 

Synodical Conference, 240. 

Synodical-presbyterial, 114, 130. 

Synodical Report, see Report of the 
Synod. 

Syverson, Mr., 236. 

Swearing, 123, 132. 

Swede, 24, 37, 66, 72, 73, 104, 134, 
166, 167, I91, 233-235. 

Sweden, 4, 27, 49, 52, 130, 132. 

Swedish, 167. 


269 


Swedish Augustana Synod, 191, 234. 
Swedish King, 4, 49, 167. 
Swine, 231. 


Tandberg, Rev. J., 65. 

Tastad, Elias, 24, 26, 28, 32, 49. 

Teach, 57, 58, 81, 162, 168-171, 177. 

Teacher, 57, 81, 105, 108-110, 116, 127, 
105,100, 17441177) 1o2, 160,.187, 1100, 
IQI, 193, 202, 230. 

Teaching, 109, 169, 172, 173, 185. 

Telemarken, 2n., 44, 46, 50, 66 

Telemarkings (Telemarkians), 42, 46. 

Temple, 203. 

Tempo, 81. 

Ten commandments, 205. 

Tenth commandment, 203. 

Testimonial, 131. 

Texas, 28, 31, 74. 

Text, 66, 82, 87, 144, 148, 161, 180. 

Textbook (Texts), 144, 160, 161. 

halberowReventiie Lie haee 150, 150, 
161, 162, 163, 165, 168, 178, 187. 

Tharaldsen, A., 235. 

Theatre, 116. 

Theologian, 75, 117, 196, 230. 

Theological, 14, 37, 148, 153, 195, 241, 
242. 

Theological candidate (See Candidate 
of theology), 64-66, 70, 221. 

Theological Faculty at Christiania, 58, 
92, 144, 210, 213-218, 221. 

Theological paper, 164. 

Theological professor, 104, 127, 167, 
190, 192, 200; 221, 222. 

Theological seminary or school, 117, 
155, 167, 186, 190-192, 200. 

Theological studies, 125, 195, 241. 

Theology, 57, 65, 91, 105, 125, 147, 
167, 191, 195, 200, 230, 243. 

Thesis, 17%) 172) 178, 212,\ 219,; 210, 
225-230, 232, 233. 

Thief, 160. 

Third Article of the Apostolic Creed, 
147, 149, 159, 180. 

Third Commandment, 223-226. 

rape L2%, 14. 

Tie vote, 188. 

Tin, Telemarken, 44, 46. 

Titus, 176. 

Torgerson, Rev. Torger A., 195, 320. 

‘eracts,, 5. 

Traktat Nr. 4, 232. 

Trinity congregation, Chicago, IlIli- 
nois, 188. 

Troas, 225. 

Trondhjem, 7, I14. 

Trovatten, Ole Knudson, 70. 


270 
True Account, by Ole Rynning, 24, 


43. 

rity hristianity, by John Arndt, 143, 
186. 

Trustees, 73n., 76. 

Truth, 163, 171, 173, 188, 197, 230. 

Tune, 81, 82, 86. 

Turk, 34, 44. 

Tybing, Bishop Dr. Hans, 7. 


Ueland, Ole Gabriel, 15, 50, 67. 

Ulfson, Gunnbjorn, 21. 

Unbelief, 133. 

“Unclean,” 147, 149. 

Union, American, 204. 

Union of congregations, 112, 134. 

Union of 1917, 1, 78, 241. 

Union of Synods (attempted), ~ 102, 
120, 125, 127, 148, 172, 173, 178, 235, 
237, 238, 241. 

“Union” (Union of Sweden and Nor- 
way), 4, 5. 

United Church (United Norwegian 
Lutheran Church of America), 78, 
EO2 4239, 242. 

United States (of America), 19, 47, 
86, 202, 207, 2I0. 

Unity, 235. 

“Universal,” 147. 

Universal (church), 140. 

Universal priesthood of believers, 168- 


170, 5172. 174. 

“University” (Luther College), 165, 
196-199, 204. 

“University” at St. Louis, Missouri, 
194. 


University group, 134, 106. 
University of Christiania (See also 


Royal Frederik University, and 
Christiania University), 17, 56, 92, 
114, 125, 127, 128, 184, 185, 195- 


197. 
Unonius, Rev. G. 1 37, 58, 59, 72. 
Usages, 138. 
Utah, 37. 


Vanderbilt, 23. 

Valdres, 2n., 93. 

Versions of beginnings of Norwegian 
American Immigration, 24. 

Vestments, 5, 62. 


Vice, 132. 
Vice-president, 128, 236. 
Vig, Ole P., 197. 


Viking, °17))21,' 27/520, 
Vikre, Rev. N., 235. 
Vinland, 22. 

Viper, 142. 


INDEX 


Visible church, 149, 150, 155, 194. 
Visitas, 213. 

Voss, 45, 50, 66. 

Vossings, 42. 

Vraastad, Ole, 120. 


Waco, Texas, 31. 

Wald, Rev. T. H., 238. 

Walker, Mr., 46. 

Walther, Prof. C. Fo sWietogeeres. 
148, 154, 155, 159, 161, 162. 164, 166, 
174; 178, 196, 107, 202, 25am 

Want, 193. 

War. See Civil War. 

War, England and allies vs. Denmark, 
Norway and allies, 4, 24. 

War, Sweden, England and allies vs. 
Denmark-Norway, 4, 24. 

Warfare, 182. 

Washington Prairie, Iowa, 128. 

Wedel-Jarlsberg, F. C., 6 

Wedel-Jarlsberg, Count Herman, 4. 

Weenaas, Prof. A., 165, I9I-193, 226, 
232-236, 238, 239, 241. 

Welhaven, Johan Sabastian, 15. 

Wergeland, Henrik, 15, 44, 91. 

Wesley, John, 61 

West, 33, 180. 

West Koshkonong, 70, 80, 128. 

Westen, Thos. von, 5. 

Western Goshen, 34. 

Western Hemisphere, 21. 

“Western settlements,” 61. 

Wexels, Wilhelm Andreas, 16, 41, I10, 
116, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147. 

Wexelsboka (Wexels’s Book), 116. 

Wexelsism (or Neo-Grundtvigian- 
ism), 98, IIo, 116. 

Wheat offerings, 199. 

Whig, 137. 

Whitewater, Wisconsin, 94. 

Wick, Barthinius L., 2, 8, 24, 25, 27, 
40. 

Wife, 3, 193, 205. 

Wind Lake, Wisconsin, 47, 79. 

Windfalls, 196. 

Winer’s Greek Grammar, 147. 

Winnebago county, Illinois, 71. 

Winneshiek county, Iowa, 128, 192, 
194. 

Winslow, William, 210. 

Wiota, Wisconsin, 94. 

Wisconsin, 30, 44,146, 01, 77a 
78-80, 95, 102, 105, 113, 128, 140, 154, 
180, 203, 239. 

Wisconsinisme, 230. 

Wisdom, 136. 

Women’s speech in Church, 156. 


INDEX 271 


Word of God, 9, 11, 53, 54, 60, 74, 76, | Yoke, 85, 224. 

77, 95, 102, 107-110, 129, 145, 147, | Yorkville, 93. 

150, 156, 158, 161, 163, 164, 169, 170, | Youth, 184. 

172, 174-178, 188, 194, 203, 205, 206, 

212, 217, 219, 221, 224, 220-230, 232. 
Worship, 173. Zion, 142, 182. 
Wyneken, President Heinrich, 154. Zululand, Africa, 57. 


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